Esplanade

Yesterday I didn't update my blog, because I was not here since 6pm.


Esplanade, the famous "Theatres on the Bay". Somehow I think that it is more like a "cempedak" than "durian", which is what people said usually. Maybe there is no cempedak in Singapore, so they have to name it "durian".

Yesterday was first of April, a day that we called "April Fool". Daniel told me that he was gonna treat me a concert at the Esplanade. Realizing that yesterday was a good day to make fun of people, I was kind of frightened. Daniel isn't a man that will make such a joke, but who knows? Maybe suddenly he was facing some problems on relationships, so he decided to make fun of me. Who really knows?


This is the place where I always dreamed to watch a concert at. It fulfilled, so surprisingly.

So I departed for Esplanade at 6pm. Esplanade isn't that far from the place I am staying, unlike the TPJC, where I went to Daniel's concert. So I took a trip on bus, and then MRT, and finally I reached City Hall Interchange, the station that is nearest to Esplanade.


This sign means that, "Esplanade is near, keep up".

The nearest station isn't that near actually. It's about 10 minutes walk from the station itself to this sign. I wanted to stop at the HMV CD shop before that, but I didn't, because time was just not enough.


This is a scary walkway towards the Esplanade. OK, it is really not that scary, the light condition is set in this manner just to show the art works that are painted there.

There is a walkway at the basement floor of Esplanade, a place where art works are shown at the wall. The light condition there is kind of romantic, or maybe you need to consider "scary".



At the Esplanade main foyer area, there was this art work that I could not name. Well, I am quite sure that this is some kind of Malay's art work. There were many people there taking photo with this thing, so I was having troubles to snap at a good angle without human in it.


The sky of the day. Look beautiful.

While waiting for Daniel, I walked outside to take some photos.


This is the name of the food area there.


This is where we planned for dinner. However, we can't make it because we were a bit late.


Sky Scrappers of Singapore. The CBD area with Merlion.

Then finally Daniel reached. While waiting for his friend and the concert to start, we went to the sistic counter at basement to buy a ticket. That was for me, and I am going to watch another concert next Saturday.




The booklet of the concert. I was amazed by the short and simple booklet. Weren't they supposed to talk more about the pieces that they had chosen?

And then finally Daniel's friend had arrived, then we went inside for the concert. Daniel said that girl on the cover of the booklet that carrying a French Horn look very chio, and I totally agree with him.

Concert Hall - from Wikipedia

Foyer to the concert hall

Esplanade's crown jewel is its elegantly-designed Concert Hall, which has been acclaimed by various performers from around the world. It features world-class acoustics designed by one of the world's most renowned acousticians, Russell Johnson of ARTEC Consultants Inc, USA, and is an ideal venue for concerts, recitals, and other performances. There are only five other halls in the world with such state-of-the-art acoustics^[2].

The orchestral platform is able to hold up to 120 musicians. Above it is the movable acoustic canopy, which comprises three pieces each weighing 17 tons. This canopy serves the purpose of a sound reflector, both to get the right acoustics to suit the ongoing event, and also to enable musicians to hear themselves on stage. As such, the hall can cater to a diverse range of musical performances.

The hall's reverberation chamber, used to vary the acoustic characteristics of the Hall, is an open void that spans three levels and has a volume of 9,500 cubic metres, or about the volume of 4 olympic sized swimming pools. It boasts 84 computer controlled doors and flaps. Each door weighs between three to 11 tons, with the largest door being 10.5 m in height and the smallest door being 2.2m in height. This chamber is smartly hidden behind mahogany timbre ribs that frame the front walls of the Concert Hall.

The concert hall's Pipe Organ comprises 4470 pipes and 61 stops. It was custom designed and built by Johannes Klais Orgelbau, one of the world’s renowned organ-builders.

The Concert Hall is able to comfortably seat 1,600 people over four levels in an intimate setting. Types of seats include Stalls, Foyer stalls, and Circles 1, 2 & 3. There are another 200 seats in the chior stalls behind the concert hall stage, which may be converted into Gallery seats for an additional 200 people. There are also four exclusive VIP Private Boxes, where one is able to have a close-up view of the performance.

Well, no photography is allowed inside the concert hall, so I can't provide any photo here.

We were sitting at the "D" row, that is the forth from the front. There is a good thing for sitting in such a front row, that mini skirts can be seen at very good angle. The bad thing is that, nothing else can be seen, except maybe a small part of clarinets. We can't even see the performers clearly because the stands are blocking our vision. So, if there were anyone who just keep stare at those mini skirts, I can't really blame him, because we really didn't have any else choice.

The performance is surely fantastic. Well, you can't held a concert at the Esplanade if you are bad, right? But, the number of players just make me felt very surprised. This must the biggest band I ever seen in my life, with more than 100 persons, or maybe more than 200 persons on the last piece. Big band just sound very different if compared with smaller band, and quantity can sometimes change quality.

The musics are just so grand, partly because the number of players, but more of that is because they played really in tune and in time. Although (what I think), their tone colour is not that good, but they can play really damn together, and that is what that make the performance very nice. One example is the clarinet section (well, I don't have else choice, because the only section that I can see is clarinet, or maybe piano and harp), with 15 of them (and this is the number before other ACS band joined in), they just played the running notes dead together. You can see their hands move really in one tempo, and that just looked very fascinating.

Actually today what I really looking forward at is the organ, which was the first time I ever seen in my life. The organ in the Esplanade Concert Hall wasn't looked that big, maybe because it is very far from the audience seats. The organ guy just came in at the piece "The Phantom of the Opera", and he just look so grand (like a statue) sitting far far upside. The organ came in only at the main theme, and I can't really hear it because other instruments are playing very loudly as well. The conductor should let the organ has some solo, if not just like wasting the organ.



We ended up eating in this place, some sort of hawker centre. It is just somewhere near esplanade, and we can't go any further.


Daniel and his friend, Cedric.


Daniel and me.

I have to really thank Daniel for treating me so many things. He has treated me the show, the very-late-dinner, his bed and a nice breakfast in his house. Maybe I should treat him back for next whatever JC band concert, and we can see mini-skirt again together. Daniel is just so kind and generous.

What's next? This one!

I was so lucky (or maybe unlucky), that I will be sitting at the last row on the ground floor, and it is the rightmost. Well, from my inspection yesterday, it is still a nice seat position.