Exciting night for festival audience

At Monday evening's Music Festival at Queen’s Hall, St Ann's, competitors in three classes picked their own tune of choice which proved to be very exciting for the audience.

Queen’s Hall came alive in the first class OP A11 Operatic Aria-Gents as six of the 16 listed competitors faced the judges at the 33rd Biennial Music Festival.

An aria is a song from a larger body of work like an opera, it is usually in a foreign language like French, Italian or German. The song is an expression of the singers' feelings and there are arias for any feeling expressed by a human being. Some are joyous, some are sad while some are very humorous.

First up was Christian Roberts who did Una Furtiva Lagrima from the Italian opera Elixir of Love and he was well received by the audience. Andre Mangatal followed with Lamento De Federico from another Italian opera L’arlesiana. He too was well received by the audience.

Next up was Jeromy Thomas who sang Klam as the Autumn Light from the Ballad of Baby Doe. Kory Mendez followed La Fleur que tu m’avis jetee from the French opera Carmen. When he was finished he received a thunderous round of applause.

Quinton Neckles and Maurice Bachan followed with La Donna e Mobile and Vraiment ma bien respectively.

In his remarks adjudicator Dr Richard Tang Yuk told the competitors he was very pleased with what he heard. “I am glad to see men doing operatic aria. When you sing an operatic aria you have to know what the words mean, you have to study the piece and it seem like you all did that.

“You also have to understand the dramatic context of the piece and where in the opera it fits. Which some of you did that well. In general, this was a good standard, as you know arias are either in French or Italian and you have to study the diction. It is much easier to sing in Italian than in French. I had to study your language, diction and the difficulty of the piece before awarding points.”

In the end, Mendez came first with 91 points and Tang Yuk told the audience the singer has a gift of communication. Mangatal was second with 90 points and Roberts third with 88 points.

The second class was OP-D3 Woodwind Solo and here seven of the listed 11 competitors faced the judge. There were various instruments such as flute, saxophone, and recorder used in this class. Nicholas Sylvan who appeared in position five had to hold on while the others performed because the judge did not have his music.

Sylvan played in the final position and it seems like it was well worth the wait as his performance brought him the first place.

Coming in second was Jodie Johnson and third was Brent Cyrus and Khai Alcantara with 91, 90 and 88 points respectively.

The final class of the evening was OP A14 Folk Song Solo Ladies and the competitors held the audience to the edge of their seats with their dynamic performances. Rene Lucas chose John Boulay as her piece and set a very high standard for the others to follow.

Nickaela James literally had the audience standing at the river’s edge as she performed The River Been Come Down and all eyes were glued to the stage.

Anissa Charles did Estafan and she was also very exciting while Simone Jeffrey had the audience in stitches as she did Dry Weather house.

Dr Tang Yuk agreed that this class was exciting and the performers brought characterisation to the pieces they chose. He awarded Nickaela James 88 points for first place with Renee Lucas coming in second with 87 points and Anissa Charles third with 85 points.