Lightyears

It’s been some time since we saw Fantasia Barrino, and I was really surprised to see her on today’s episode of American Idol. She is probably my favourite American Idol, though I also like Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, because of the genre of the music she does.

However, I was rather disappointed with her performance of “Bore Me (Yawn)” in terms of the vocals; loved the choreography though. Thought the dance was hot! Anyway, she was like screeching throughout, quite excessively in my opinion. The performance could have been much better… sighz..  And thought her hair looked rather out-of-point…

Anyway, I am looking forward to her new album! I am sure it would be a great album.

Here’s the performance:

It’s been some time since I watched concerts of Chinese music. It was really great to hear traditional Chinese music once again, especially when I used to play the Suona myself.

The recital was a relatively short one, but it showcased the versatility of the suona. The soloist, Meng Jie, is a musician with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. There were traditional as well as modern pieces played in the concert, which I think was really appropriate, given the misconception people have with Chinese music. The performance began with a traditional piece titled “Celebrations” which was a great piece to start.

The following 2 pieces were rather modern, and were written by Meng Jie’s teacher, Zuo Ji Cheng. The first of the 2 pieces, “Rustic Morning Tunes” sounded rather nice and mellow, while the latter I thought was a bit cheesy, probably because of the music that was played on the MIDI file. Didn’t really like the composition I think…

The fourth piece “Family Portrait” I sort of forgot how it sounds like so moving on… A modern arrangement of a traditional piece I assume, cos it is also played with an MIDI file as an accompaniment. It started off rather ok, until rather cheesy music came in again. I hope I am not badmouthing about Chinese music, but I didn’t really like the tunes that were played on te MIDI file…

After which, “Polka”, a Polish dance, was played. It was a fun and entertaining song, which was played very well on the alto-levered suona, sort of like a clarinet. The evening’s performance ended with a suona classic “A Flock of Birds”. It was an amazing performance by Meng Xi in my opinion, with a bit of flaws nonetheless.

Overall, I think Meng Xi is a rather charming and talented performer, but probably needs to work on certain stuff, like the decrescendos and smorzandos because the sound sort of disappears too quickly. It was a great performance nonetheless, for someone who has never done a “solo” performance!