Fritz Quartet at Tanjong Pagar Community Centre

1st September 2007
Repertoire:

Dvorak String Quartet Op. 96 "American" (Last movement)
Bengawan Solo
Ye Lai Xiang


Today, the Fritz Quartet was invited to perform for the National Day Concert, held at the Tanjong Pagar Community Centre. The Guest-of-Honor for the evening was Associate Professor Koo Tsai Kee, Minister of State for Ministry of Defence.

It was indeed a great pleasure to work again with Mr Chua Beng Koon, whom we had worked with last year at the Spottiswoode Park National Day Roadshow.


Our thanks to the Cab Auntie who patiently navigated her way around until we spotted the sign.

Tze Chuan and Johnny waylays Bingling while she is trimming her nails (Haha!)

Yes, we had a whole room to ourselves!!!

Dinner was provided for us too-- YUMMY. A hand sneakily reaches out for the burgers.

We managed to capture a picture of the audience from the 2nd level of the multi-purpose hall, prior to the arrival of the Guest-of-Honour.

The performance went smoothly as planned and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We were initially worried that the Dvorak String Quartet might not have been well-received due to its relative obscurity compared to famous tunes like The Entertainer etc, but the audience lapped it up enthusiastically with their warm applause.

A big THANK YOU to Mr Chua Beng Koon for all your kind gestures in ensuring that we were fed, cool (yes, an air-conditioned holding area, and soundproof too!) and very happy (we didn't have to worry about all the technicalities)!

Our thanks as well to the sound and stage crew for prepping the stage for us, as well as the kind student helpers who ushered us to our places (from stage to room)

Compliments from Mr Chua Beng Koon:
Dear Tze Chuan,
It was indeed our pleasure working with your quartet. The audience enjoyed your performance very much.

The Fritz Quartet at Joo Chiat CC

23rd Feb 2007

The Fritz Quartet was invited to perform for the Joo Chiat Constituency, this time for a Chinese New Year dinner held for grassroots leaders. It was a pleasure seeing some familiar faces again, as we had played for some of them at the Joo Chiat Square on the 6th January.

Thank you for coming up to say hello to us!

We played for the reception before the Guest of Honour, Mrs Chan Soo Sen arrived. We were then invited to join the guests for a sumptious buffet spread. With food in our stomachs, it was time to take to the stage, where we performed Scott Joplin's The Entertainer, as well as 春节序曲 [Chun Jie Xu Qu], a medley of Chinese New Year songs.

It was really hot due to the bright spotlights but the applause we garnered made it all worthwhile. Guests came up to us after that to thank us for our performance. We are certainly glad that we made the day (night) of the guests at the event!

The Fritz Quartet would like to thank Mr William Ng for inviting us to play for the event as well as the tech crew for their support.

Till the next post,
Tze Chuan

Fritz Quartet at Joo Chiat Square

6th Jan 2007

As the Fritz Quartet is always keen to do our bit for the community, it was an honour for the Fritz Quartet to be invited to kick start a series of performances, held at the Joo Chiat square for 2007, an intiative started by grassroots leaders seeking to revamp the image of Joo Chiat.

We were pleasantly surprised upon our arrival to discover that our performance area was a simple cemented open space, which once supported a petrol station. In comparison to various indoor and outdoor functions that we have played for, this was truly an unusual space for a string quartet performance because it offered us a blank canvas to paint our performance, giving us the space to unleash our raw energy and potential.

It was around 5.30pm when we reached the venue, and the weather was still considerably hot. Minister of Parliament, Dr Chan Soo Sen, had arrived by then, and as all systems were good to go, we decided to proceed with the programme despite the sweltering heat.

We began the program with Broadway Musicals, followed by Popular Classics and finally, Chinese Folk-song arrangements. It was a particularly demanding task as the glare of the sun were on our faces and we had to combat the heat, as well as the strong wind. Undeterred, we soldiered on, with Max doubling as our emcee for the day. The audience in return gave us their full support with their affectionate applauses, and interacted actively with us. Encouraged by Max, the audience indulged in a sing-along session while we played familiar Chinese favourites such as 月亮代表我的心 "Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo de Xin" and 夜来香 "Ye Lai Xiang".

A Lianhe Zaobao (local Chinese newspaper) reporter and photographer were also present. Kudos to the photographer who tried to dodge our bows in order to capture wonderful pictures of Fritz Quartet members in action.

Click here for the link to the article.

Encouraged by the audience, we presented two encores, with the excerpt from the "Butterfly Lovers" generating the most buzz. A brief interaction with the reporter and grassroots members ended our interesting performing experience at the Joo Chiat Square.

The Fritz Quartet at Spottiswoode Park

26th August 2006

The Fritz Quartet performed for a national day event at Spottiswoode Park today. It was an outdoor event, one which we had not done for a while. We took the stage together with singer, Chua Yi Fang and performed "Over the Rainbow" and "Memory" from the musical 'Cats'. It gives us great joy to work with other music lovers, and especially such a talented singer. We enjoyed ourselves tremendously and we look forward to more music-making opportunities together!

We would also like to thank Mr Chua for inviting us to play for the event and being a great coordinator, making sure that the stage was cleared for the quartet for our sound check and ensuring that we had our dinner. Most importantly, we had our own room so our instruments were safe from the humidity of the weather at least until our item! Really appreciate that! :)