What I listen to

Sometimes when people ask me what I listen to I feel like a freak because the music that I listen to isn’t quite what other people listen to. Like right now, I’m listening to the compositions of John Rutter, possibly my favourite composer. I like “All Things Bright and Beautiful” and “Open Thou Mine Eyes” and “The Music’s Always There.” I love his “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

I first heard the ACJC Choir perform “The Music’s Always There” and that’s when I fell in love with singing and acapella.

I do listen to other genres of music but I’m always behind. I think it’s coz I don’t listen to the radio. I don’t know why… I just can’t be bothered. One thing I hate is electronic/dance music. I just don’t get it. To me, it’s just computers mixing music, there’s no actual talent in singing involved. Last night two friends sent me two very different mp3s - I listened to one to sleep and had to trash the other one coz it made my flesh crawl.

I miss singing. I remember my university years singing with the choir fondly and my trip to France is especially special because it was really the first trip I took without my parents. I roomed with Sara, Peiling and Davina, and separately Sara and Raymond. We ate tartes aux fraises, quiche lorraine, and cherries from paper bags. We snuck boiled eggs, cheese and yogurt out of the breakfast room to have with baguette and Boursin cheese for lunch sitting out in the sunshine. We were in Tours for a choral competition, 40 of us. We didn’t win anything - we were so outdone by the other choirs, but it was a great experience. And we got to travel: Paris and London. I think it was then that began my love affair with Paris. I hadn’t taken French lessons at uni then but I memorized phrases from the guide book and always remembered not to replicate my mom’s faux pas of mispronouncing “monsieur” as “monster.”

We sang everywhere we went as long as we had the pre-requisite SATB combination. In a hallway or stairwell where the acoustics were good. Under the arch of a cathedral. On the boat as we cruised along the Seine.

I documented the whole trip in a scrapbook. Back then I was still using a film camera, a Rollei in an unusual shade of blue. I still remember taking 40 rolls of iso 400 film with me and being laughed at for taking so much film. I still have that scrapbook which I’ll dig up when I go back. I’m not entirely sure how to transfer it to digital.

Paris is one of my two special cities, a city I hold close to my heart. I love it. I’ve often said that I want to go back, fly solo and just experience Paris the way Sabrina did in both Audrey Hepburn and Julia Ormond versions. I haven’t yet but one day I will.