THE SEASON OF LIGHT - 2004

 

 

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The Season of Light was conceived as an advent musical celebrating the timeless Christmas message, illuminating a world that is still much shrouded in darkness. The musical was staged on Saturday 4th & Sunday 5th December 2004 at The First Baptist Church, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia.

The musical was an eclectic blend of warm and nostalgic moments and high-energy celebration songs in the form of contemporary arrangements and uplifting anthems. The styles and varied arrangements provided opportunities for solos, duets, a trio; and included medleys of some of the best loved Christmas cantata repertoires.

Highlights include the soulful strains and upbeat “Amen”, Handel’s pastorale “He Shall Feed His Flock” in the form of a contemporary duet, Joseph’s moving lullaby of “Little Yeshua”, the ever vibrant “Everlasting Light” and others. The audience sang along with some of the familiar Christmas anthems within this celebration by candlelight.

Net proceeds from the musical were were donated to MERCY Malaysia and CREST Malaysia for tsunami relief work in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, The Good Shepherd Home for Girls, The Boys' Brigade and an orang asli community project.

 

 

 

Program Notes

 

 

FORWARD BY THE PRODUCER & MUSIC DIRECTOR

 

They say that time flies and I guess there is some truth in that as I find it hard to believe that The Canticle Singers is 12 years old.  The exact details in 1992 are not very clear but what I do remember was that we had heard that the Methodist Senoi Missions somewhere in Perak needed a couple of motorcycles for local folk for their daily use. We had only a handful of tenors and basses together against eight women.  Nevertheless we bravely put up our first a musical production “The Word” for  Christmas and raised enough funds to purchase two motorcycles.

Over the years we have found that the size of our productions have gradually increased; with  increasing demands on the singers themselves as well as on our production and technical crew and of course higher production costs.   Not forgetting too that  we have an increasingly discerning audience. You just have got to put in a lot more blood, sweat and tears. Realistically speaking, with us, the size of the production somehow evolves and grows – new ideas are introduced or the scale and dimension of particular sequences enlarged -  and the end result……”How did it ever get to be staged on this scale?”  Our production “Do You Hear the People Sing” in August of this year still leaves me baffled as we ended up having to feed a cast and crew of 105 people every evening. And barely a month after this mammoth production we found ourselves having our hands full again preparing another musical for the year end Christmas Season. Time and budget constraints were tight and added to this, there were the often massive roadblocks along the way. Despite the difficulties, with His strength and grace, we have finally made it to the end  of a very challenging year indeed.  

I tend to agree with San Sooi, that as directors of a performing group, it is very rewarding and fulfilling to see how the performers develop over time as each production makes its own unique demands on them – vocally, movement and expression. In the background, our technical and production crew are presented with their own set of challenges in terms of sound and other technical requirements. In particular I would like to mention Wong Wing Thim, Noel Jayaratnam and Tan Meng Guan who started out with us in the early days and multi-tasked between themselves or as they put it “one leg kick”. Over the last twelve years, our sound and technical experts have ensured that we progressively graduated from ordinary stand alone microphones to boundary microphones, to condensers, then  to high frequency wireless head microphones.  Of the original band of singers in 1992, we are happy to have Shirani Amarasingham,  May Ang  and Pan Swee Chin who are with us  for this production.

San Sooi, continues as our Artistic Director, this being his fifth production with us and working us hard, always encouraging and challenging us to give of our best to our Master. We are also priviledged to have Agnes Yeow singing with us for this production and Geoffrey Woo as co-narrator.

The music that we have selected for this production “The Season of Light” is gathered from some of the classic Christian musicals. These well loved favourites within the Advent repertoire of anthems are as refreshing as when we first heard them.  You will hear selections drawn from evergreen musicals such as “Everlasting Light”, “Make His Praise Glorious”,  “Calvary’s Love” and “Handel’s Young Messiah” and will be joining in during the congregational Christmas carols.

Once again, the musical production of "The Season of Light" has culled the labour and efforts of many people; not just the performers and the production crew but also include the support and functional areas as well as our generous corporate partners.  They have all volunteered their God-given talents and resources – time and commitment perhaps being the most valuable as well as their energies and finances.  Together we hope to make this Christmas celebration concert, a joyful, memorable and meaningful one for you.

We wish  you a blessed Christmas. .  

H K Chong

REPERTOIRE

NARRATORS

GUITAR

SHOFAR

 

 

 

THE PRODUCTION TEAM

 

Producer & Music Director				H K Chong
Co-Producer & Artistic Director				Chin San Sooi
Technical Director				Wong Wing Thim
Sound & Recording Engineer				Kenneth Ooi
Asst Sound Engineer				Harris Cazaly
assisted by				Charlotte Tan
Lighting Design				Chin San Sooi
Lighting Engineer				Wong Li Yit
assisted by				Loh Wei-Ling
Stage Manager				Noel Jayaratnam
Technical & Stage Crew				Tan Meng Guan, Angie Ng Sow Ling,
				Song Wee Kiat, Kong Chee Sun
Multimedia Presentation				Au Soung Ern
assisted by				Wong Li Jian
Music Trax				Kenneth Ooi
Fabrication of props				Esther Ang
assisted by				Hong Chiuk Wai
Company Manager				Teh Chuan Seng
Financial Controller				Ivy Chan
Make Up				Stella-In Beauty Centre & Therapy
				Academy
Photographer				Bobby Y P Wong
Webmaster and Multimedia				Low Tze Liang
Advertising
Catering for Cast and Crew				Ivy Wong & ladies of PJ Gospel Hall
Ushers				Members of First Baptist Church PJ