GE Music Students attend Macao Orchestra Rehearsal in N2 Rehearsal Room
 
GE Music Students attended Macao Orchestra Rehearsal in N2 Rehearsal Room, and found it an amazing, enjoyable and enlightening experience.
They were all welcomed most warmly by Lu Jia, Music Director and Principal Conductor, Francis Kan, Assistant Conductor and all the orchestral players.
The students commented how Lu Jia directed the rehearsal, demanding the highest standards of performance, expression and interpretation, tempered with palpable warmth and humour. The students thought this an excellent model for the workplace, ensuring that colleagues are encouraged to perform their best and guided by a leader to produce their best work.
The students were greatly impressed by the sheer professionalism and beauty of everything they observed and heard.
They really cherished this precious opportunity, many referring to it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially to sit so close to the players with close-up observation of their techniques and instruments, some of which they had not known of previously.
They were amazed at the discipline, close collaboration and co-ordination, friendliness shown and team work across the orchestra, by musicians from all over the world, often communication in a wide range of languages. And that all the different instruments blended harmoniously together to produce beautiful music.
They observed how much the violins played the main themes, and especially how the Leader, Paolo Morena, led with such strength, direction and conviction.
The students vowed to listen more carefuly to music in the future, as they could not always discern some of the playing that Lu Jia wanted to improve to an even higher standard and how all the players earnestly put all their energies into achieving what was required. The students all agreed it did indeed sound better overall after the intervention, but that they did not always hear what the precise difference was at first.
As well as concentrating intently in the rehearsal, the students expressed great enjoyment at the experience, and many attended the concert performance of Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 4 “Italian” later that week at St Dominic’s Church.
As one student wrote later: “I was blown away by attending this rehearsal!”, whilst another students commented that “I am too excited to take my eyes and ears off the musicians to make notes about the rehearsal!
A final conclusion was that practice really does make perfect. |
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