Sweet Surprise

It's been quite a week. I finally finished writing my History paper. Still need to work on it further to fine tune it but the bulk is done.

I had a good opportunity to watch a couple of performance lately. The first was an Italian opera with 'subtitles' projected on a screen, Marriage of Figaro by Mozart. The cast was made up of 20 odd students, and a professional maestro conducting the accompanying orchestra. Then Handel's Messiah, which was free, performed by 50 UBC students. This was accompanied by an excellent pianist with the timpani and brass parts here and there. It was pretty amazing listening and watching these 50 students belt out praises to God in such a majestic fashion. All these were prelude to the final performance that I attended.

The Vancouver Bach Choir performed Bach's Mass in B Minor at the Orpheum. I was not at all surprised to meet some 20 Regent students there. It was an awesome experience as 160 singers sang praises accompanied by a full orchestra of about 40. Altogether these group of 200 have put in hours and hours of practice to perfect praise unto God! What commitment. I cannot imagine the nightmare it is to arrange the logistics for such a group. It is humbling. Although it was sung in Latin, we had the English translation of the text in the program. I pray the message of the gospel will sink in the hearts of these as they sing. Bach actually wrote these pieces to be performed at Mass in church. How many churches today put in half that effort to perfect our praise and worship? Of course, even Hallelujahs and Amens are masterpieces of music, lasting a whole five minutes or more. Singing the Apostle's creed took half an hour. Nothing is too small or insignificant. It's really amazing and mind-blowing. However that also means there is not much of lyrics in this kind of singing. I've heard people complained that modern choruses these days do not have 'quality' lyrics (as compared to traditional hymns I suppose), and keep on repeating cliché or the same lines.... wait till they listen to these guys!

One interesting incident to share. I went to a cafe to treat myself to a dessert before the musical. I had a place in mind, which had an outlet a few blocks from the theatre. It was raining that evening, and when I got off the bus, I realised there is a branch right next to the theatre, which I had not noticed before! As I was waiting for my order, I was feeling a little guilty, thinking of spending almost $10 on desert and coffee. Anyways, it felt good to chill out and it reminded me of the good times I had hanging out with friends back in KL during weekends. My order came but they got it wrong. They changed it without any fuss. When I got the bill, I was surprised when the waiter told me that they took out the dessert from the bill to apologise for the confusion!! My eyes nearly popped. So I end up paying $3 for dessert and coffee! Don't you think God has a great sense of humour? It made my evening, weekend and brightened up this whole stressful season!