The Concert Hall

I went to the concert hall at the Esplanade today. I wished I had worn better clothes because looking the grandeur of the beautiful concert hall, I only shuddered to look at myself. There are those Tom and Jerry cartoons where jerry would go into a huge palace, look above him, his neck rotating 360 degrees in the effort. Well, if I had that flexible a neck, I would have done the jerry-act. But, I couldn't conceal my awe and wonder when I looked at a structure so artistic, so perfect. I don't know if there are better concert halls in this world but this one sure is good competition. It could only compare it to the Academy Awards hall. It was smaller than that one but had the same arrangement. The balcony seating- there were three levels of seating. In some ways, it reminded me of the theatres where the Shakespearean plays were performed. In those balconies, I could almost see women with their eyes covered with net veils sitting beside their husbands who were uptight white color men of high ranks. The hands of the women were gloved, they wore hats with beads and feathers on them. Their gowns had plunging neck lines but revealed their perfect figures under the tightened corsets.

I was taking pictures, had taken just two when the lady from the management forbade me. I was a little disappointed. But, then I took out my little notebook and sketched some part of the hall. I'll try describing it here. The entire hall has been done in an orange-brown colored wood and has green upholstery. The lighting is yellow which brightens to a white sometimes. The hall is roughly in the shape of a rounded rectangle but the ceiling is awesome craftwork. I could compare it to a mandolin-like instrument. The stage is a semicircle with four small steps where the orchestra puts its chairs for a multi-level seating. Now, the sound-box of the mandolin like ceiling is right above the stage. It has a spiral on it (again crafted in wood) where the part of the spiral directly above the stage has brightness controllable studio lights. In front of the stage there is a centre seating for the audience. Directly above this part is the tapering fret-board of the mandolin-like ceiling. Apart from this there is other seating also- around the centre-seating there are balconies at three levels. In fact, there is balcony seating behind the stage as well. The panels on the wall behind the stage have wood artwork on them, the level above them has columns of wood interspersed with shorter hanging columns with lights on them. The acoustics are obviously brilliant and the allure is distinctly rich.

It was a one-hour concert by a local orchestra called the Kim Seng wind symphony. They had a wide range of wind instruments- flutes, saxophones, trumpets and also some accompanying ones like xylohphone, drums, cymbals. The played the Chinese new year songs (which I am now familiar with), some Chinese love song compositions and the english love songs- Everything I do and Right Here Waiting. The wind instruments lent the jazz like appeal to the last two numbers. The nursery rhyme like sound of the Chinese New Year songs remained untouched with the xylophone adding more sweetness to it. Also, they played some popular movie soundtracks- one of which was the Alladin theme. The music only added to the splendor of the concert hall. It was characteristic of the old black and white English movies. The rise and fall of volume, of tempo, the crash of the cymbals, the slow beating of drums, the small saxophone solos- all of it.

Only if I had the princess shoes, I would have been Cindrella.