Another Year at the Tokyo International Choral Competition
The Tokyo International Choir Competition (TICC) is one bittersweet stage.
TICC 2018 was DCS’s debut in the international choral festival scene. Winning TICC gave us the entrance ticket to the World Choral Championship (WCC) 2019 one year later, also in Tokyo. Which we then humbly lost, a loss that still stings dully to this very day. But sometimes, it takes a wake-up call to bring down your ego a little, to remind you that winning takes a lot of tough sacrifices, and to make you want to keep trying a little harder.
When DCS first reconvened in 2012, it felt more like an extension of our (already competitive) high school choirs. Most faces were familiar; we were placed in local music festivals we knew like the back of our hand. The oldest cohort ran up to a decade before our year, and it was fun to be the baby of the choir. It was very social, with few responsibilities, if any.
Then, the years started going by, life got in the way, and my friends started dropping out. The new blood ran beyond our years (heck, we never even co-existed in school), my stamina grew worse (the pandemic didn’t help), and I could barely match the faces to the names. Rinse and repeat every summer–it would be a miracle if I even get to know the entire choir before the season ends. Basically, we grew old. Period.
The saving grace is I do think it’s a beautiful notion to grow old with a constant in your life.
I’m unsure why, but rehearsals felt tougher this summer than in Gangneung. We were only sending out one choir for the festival (as opposed to three last year), meaning we had everyone’s full attention without competing priorities, and rehearsals ran from day to night.
Eventually, I realised that I was standing and singing for more hours than I usually worked at my desk, and most people don’t realise how many calories standing already burns, let alone the core workout that singing entails. By the end of our third and last session every evening, I could barely focus and was ready to drop dead. I thought I would be pigging out at the Japanese convenience store every night when, in reality, I was so tired that I only wanted to destress in bed and let my mind run free.
We sang of war and grief, the rolling tides and changing seasons, religion and love. In English, Latin, and Japanese. Sometimes, it almost feels easier to troll my friends and tell them we’re a show choir than to say we’re a capella that sings, what, exactly? Anyone else would think it ridiculous to spend so much time on a twenty-minute repertoire—a performance that, as magical as it may be, disappears once the choir scatters.
Was it worth watching my diet sharply for months and chugging as much water as my stomach could hold so I managed to survive choir boot camp? Many nights, I have lain in bed munching on my favourite grilled onigiri from Lawson or slurping a creamy milk pudding, and truth be told, the answer always evades me. I know there’s an arresting quality to creating something fleeting that can only be savoured in the present. If so many generations feel the same about our cause, surely it must be worth pursuing. (Unless we’re a cult, which I can wholeheartedly assure you, we are anything but.)
So thank you, Tokyo; it has been a good summer. We’ll see you all again in Taipei next year.
Meanwhile, you can catch our Grand Prix pieces Jubilate Deo and I Am Not Yours online. (We’ve sung the latter piece several times over the years on different occasions but never won–I’m glad we finally broke the curse with a much finer rendition we can be happy about.)
If you want to catch us in action, join us at the Hong Kong Museum of Art on 1 December 2024, where we will cover these pieces and more.
Womens’ choral outfit designed by Cerine Lee, founder of the Hong Kong-based label The Surian.
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