Medchorus Festival Taipei 2008

It's difficult to imagine a chorus festival had had 31 years of history behind its name - Medchorus in English, Ten Medical Choirs (十醫) in Chinese. Congregating choir groups from all 10 medical schools in Taiwan, it is a yearly event which schools boast itself on their musical abilities and creativity.
TCU being one of the youngest and smallest medical school in Taiwan, but not wanting to show its weak side in front of others, arrogantly zipped itself into this glorious festivity, with only 13 people. A choir with 13 people is quite equivalent to a 6-seater car with only 1300cc. And, seriously lacking tenors (in a choir there are usually 4 parts - soprano, alto, tenor, bass), we were one doomed team if it wasn't for the zippy selection of songs. Our only confidence lie in the songs we are to sing.
This year's festival was hosted in National Yang Ming University, one of the most prominent medical universities in northern Taiwan. I was definitely excited to go visit a school far more superior than ours.

This is the ChungShan Medical School choir, I could count at least 25 at a glance.

This is us, 13.

Glazed with pride with our creamy songs (there were easy and have infectious melodies, unlike ancient pieces by Mozart which drives you to Slumberland in two instances), imagine my shock when I saw 2 out of 4 of our songs collide with other schools. And we were the last to perform.

Pep talk session with Miss Liu, our teacher (woman in black shirt). Terribly hot day in Taipei, and we were allocated a room no bigger than a coffin with with ceiling-to-floor glass panels on one side (looks like a zoo chamber from the outside).

This is us. A choir with 13 persons. If you count more than 13, the rest are the pianist (front girl in jade green shirt), a photographer, and a Mommy (she decide not to sing but accompanied us here to 'have a look').

Boys are highly treasured in a choir, especially in a girls-predominating school. I reformed the boys this year - instead of wearing black ribbons, which made us look like third-class clowns, we wore black ties, which made us look like funeral parlors.

We screwed up some parts, as expected. We were weak in terms of number and volume, but I do think we made up on our skills as most of us are experienced singers. The most important of singing comes in handy - passion. At the end of the day, it didn't turn out that badly, though the arrogant leader of Taipei Medical University sneered at me on my way to breakfast the following day.

Group photo after the performance. Background Chinese words - let's join Medchorus (一同參十醫『三十一』to commemorate for the 31st anniversery of this festival).

History will remember me as a chorus leader who brought a group of 13 to perform, and end up not so badly despite having literally no voice balance and not-so-bad voice integration. Anyway, time will pass and soon people might even forget who held the 31st Medchorus. Everything will become history and be forgotten.