The Darkside Has Come To The Colombo Music Festival

Greetings one and all. The rumours of my passing have been wildly exaggerated; I have merely been too busy of late to blog. Much to your relief, no doubt.

Just thought I'd write a quick update on what I've been up to in the last month or so. Besides the daily grind that work provides, I've found myself rather busy with an "extra-curricular" activity - singing. A few weeks ago I heard about the "Senses and Soul" Colombo Musical Festival, which is to be held during the end of August. Along with several workshops, talks and performances from reputed foreign artists, the music festival is also organising, as a lead up event, a singing competition, with the finals to be held during the festival week itself. The contest spans various genres, including Jazz, Pop & RnB, Rock, Classical, Musical Theatre, Gospel as well as group and solo events in each category. With the promise of international talent scouts coming to view the finalists, and the possibility of 'international' exposure, the music festival seemed to be a real first for Colombo, and so it was with much excitement (and a slight bit of nerves) that I applied in both Gospel and Rock solo.

The first audition was very American Idol-esque, with three judges giving you roughly a minute to impress them with any choice of song, sung without accompaniment. I sang snippets of "And Now My Lifesong Sings" and "Dolphin's Cry" for my auditions, with the judges asking me to sing another song for the Rock audition to show my 'variety'. In a panic I sang Incubus' "Dig", and crossed my fingers. Luckily, I made it through to the next round.

The preliminaries required music, so after a few rushed practices with Bro during the weekend, I managed to work out Building 429's "Always" for the Gospel solo and Alter Bridge's "Watch Over You" for Rock solo.. This was the first time we saw the other competitors in our categories, as the initial audition was for all genres. I had to admit there were some amazing voices on display, especially in the Pop & RnB category. The whole day was spent at the venue, and by the time the results came out I had heard some of the best jazz, broadway, opera, pop and rock singers Colombo had to offer (as well as some Korean Pop - I'll get to that later).

Again, I was lucky enough to make it to the semi final round for both categories! I had to admit I was feeling a bit confident at this stage, but then I was told we had to sing something in complete contrast to what we sang for the preliminaries. This sort of threw me: what the heck is a contrast to "Watch Over You"? After several nights on Youtube and going through my iTunes playlists, I finally settled on what would easily be my hardest cover song: "Roxanne" by The Police.

It was definitely one of the most fun performances I've done, and it was enough to get me through into the final round of the Rock solo category. Unfortunately I wasn't so lucky for the Gospel round, but I'll upload that video as soon as I can too.

Well that's what I've been up to! I'll write more later on my observations during this competition and working with all these extremely talented musicians and performers; it's definitely been a very eye-opening experience.

The finals are on August 25th-26th; more details soon! Hope to see you there as well.

Update:

I've uploaded the audio on Soundcloud: enjoy!