Performing On Two Stages!

Written by Adlyn Koh on 5 June 2025, 9.35 pm. 

Hi Amazing Supporters! It's been really long since I've written a blog and a lot has happened in my life! Firstly, it is the June Holidays and I finally have a break from the busy school curriculum 😝 I'll write about it in another blog soon. 

One and a half months ago, I performed with my school's choir on stage in front of an audience for the first time in my life! My school's choir had about 50-70 members and we are an SATB choir (Soprano, Alto, Tener, Bass). Which meant that we could sing a large variety of songs ranging from pop, to traditional folk songs, to songs in other languages. 

On 21 April 2025, I was dismissed from school early to take part in SYF (Singapore Youth Festival). SYF is a test-like event that takes place every two years where different performing arts from schools all around Singapore would take turns to perform in front of a small audience (mainly made up of parents) and about five judges. The judges would give feedback on the performance and grade the performance (Distinction, Accomplishment, etc.). I've never performed in a choir before and that was something extremely exciting for me. 😆 

My choir had trained really hard for the past few months, we had extra practices often and it was a tiring journey. I practised the songs at home, and had to memorise choreography too! Plus, my school's SYF performance was in the middle of exam period and I had to manage between singing and studying. It wasn't easy, especially when my Higher Chinese exam was on the same day as my SYF. I could not skip the exam and had to finish it before rushing off to join my choir for lunch and practice. That day was exhausting. Basically, this was the programme that day:

1. 3 hours of lessons

2. Exam

3. Lunch

4. Choir practice

5. Change into performance attire and put on makeup (I learnt makeup myself 🤭)

6. Travel to SOTA (School of The Arts) for SYF

7. Last rehearsal

8. Performance

9. Choir debrief

10. Home!! 🥳

Unfortunately, photography was not allowed during the performance :((. 🥲

After the performance, I felt really drained. The makeup felt heavy on my face and I could still hear the audience clapping and see the bright stage lights illuminating the whole stage. However, for some reason, I wasn't nervous at all on stage. Although everyone was jittery and anxious backstage, when it was our time to shine, we performed our very best. 😁 It was easier to perform confidently with a group on stage with you because not everyone is focused on you. Still, I was standing in the front row (because of my height and volume of singing) and thus, more exposed to attention. As such, I tried to smile and give the audience a positive performance and even though I was just one girl in the whole choir, I'm sure I made a difference too. 🤩 I'm anticipating 2027's SYF and I can't wait to stand on that stage and give a great performance again! 🌟

After SYF I realized that I loved the stage! Most of the performing arts CCAs in my school have annual concerts, including choir. Choir was collaborating with String Ensemble for our concert this year and it was our first time working with another CCA! 🩷 Basically our concert was split into three parts-Choir performance (7 songs), String Ensemble Performance (5 songs), and the grand finale (CCAs combine to perform one song). 

However, having a concert right after our SYF had its bad points too. For instance, we had about three weeks to perfect songs that we had barely learned and we were performing in front of more than 600 people! 😮 Still, we had to persevere and perform on 16 May 2025. While other CCAs celebrated their SYF completion and had breaks, choir trained 2x harder, going for practices on Saturdays, and submitting recordings to our seniors to make sure we could sing the songs correctly. All our hard work was worth it, but I felt like we could have worked harder. Our concert was decent, while I thought the String Ensemble sounded breathtaking. 

My favourite parts of the concert day was before and after the concert. I remember leaving class an hour earlier with two other classmates from String Ensemble to have lunch before the rehearsal and the actual concert. I remember how our classmates watched us and wished us luck. That brief minute of pride and joy gave me a lot of motivation to do my best. Before we proceeded Backstage to get ready to perform, the teachers-in-charge of the CCAs ordered Thai milk tea for everyone and the String Ensemble and Choir members gulped it down gratefully. It was so refreshing and helped to calm me down. 🧋 Backstage, I remember my heart beating super fast and how the whole choir was hugging each other and holding hands to calm ourselves down, after all, the audience were bigger than it had been last year (quoted from my senior)! 😬😰

The progression of the concert was great, but the technical stuff wasn't very good (like exiting the stage etc.). Choir made some mistakes occasionally but with three weeks to prepare and 7 songs to sing + some choreo, it was good.