On Thursday the 8th of December, OSC held their annual Winter gala which was the first time that it was conducted in 3 years due to COVID and other restrictions. The theme of the gala was “hope” due to the chaotic 2022 that Sri Lanka had and was intended to symbolise a prosperous and hopeful 2023. Personally, I was performing two acts in the gala, Interstellar, the solo piano piece that I had been preparing and Les Restos du Coeur, a song that we were singing as a part of the French students of OSC.
(Credit: Official Photographer)
My performance of Interstellar was the 7th act in the gala and leading up to it I was extremely nervous. Even though I was extremely comfortable in my playing ability, I strongly disliked public performances because just a simple slip of a key on the piano can potentially ruin a brilliant performance. Surprisingly enough, when I sat down on the stool to play I felt weirdly calm. Even with the crowd behind me, my entire focus was on my piece and while I initially felt some nerves, as the performance went on I just forgot about the people watching me and thankfully turned in the best performance that I ever could have.
(Credit: Official Photographer)
Next was the performance of our French song, Les Restos Du Coeur. I was much less nervous for this but there was much more potential for embarrassment due to French being a secondary language and also because I was situated within a group of friends who had no self-control when it came to laughing. The performance went extremely well bar a burst of uncontrollable concealed laughter at the end and ensured that the gala was a general success.
Learning Outcomes:
Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process: Putting in countless hours of practice and following advice from my music teacher, I learnt many new performance techniques which I then implemented in the gala.
Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth: My piano performance portrayed many of my strengths while my singing performance portrayed that I could definitely develop this area for personal growth.