24 November 2008

2008 Christmas Concert at IPC

Singing, Music, and Short Play Performances by IPC Students

By Shirley Ghozalli. Edited by Moira Blake and Gillian Claridge.

On Wednesday 19th November 2008, a "Christmas Concert", was held in the Senior Common Room at International Pacific College (IPC). The concert was designed to entertain people from several rest homes in Palmerston North as well as to promote the Christmas spirit. Included in the concert were performances by students of many different nationalities.

Organized by two IPC lecturers, Gillian Claridge and Wah Tiong Chan, this year's concert presented performances by the IPC Singing Group, 2 bands, musical instrument soloists, vocalists and student actors and actresses. Those performances were divided into 2 sessions with a tea break in-between sessions.

IPC Singing Group singing Christmas Songs and Carols	Kyohei Fujita playing as guitar soloist	A student serving refreshments during the break
A scene from the play by students from the International Management class	Brothers' Duet (From left: Koetsu Iha on a traditional instrument from Okinawa and Kotaku Iha on the guitar)	Kotaku Iha and Shinie Pham singing the Lover's Concert

Wearing clothes of Christmas colours of red, green and gold, the IPC Singing Group members sang two songs to open the concert at 1.30pm. This was followed by the first band whose 6 members are students from Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Thailand. After the band ended their performance with a song from The Calling, Kyohei Fujita (a 2006 student) took the centre stage to perform a guitar solo.

After the solo, the second band played 2 of Johnny Cash's hit songs. Singing as Johnny Cash was Hideto Kasahara (a 2007 student) and as June Carter Cash, Saya Nakamura (also a 2007 student). A piano solo by Simeon Phillips (another 2007 student) ended the first session.

During the tea break, some IPC students volunteering for the event helped to serve the refreshments to the audience.

The second session opened with a short play by the students studying International Management. Directed by Ronald (a 2007 student) and written by their lecturer, Maureen Syn, the play originated from a case study presentation in the class entitled "Poor Old Bruce, he couldn't cut the wasabe". The play tells the story of an Australian family in Japan and their experience of culture clash.

After the concert, Ronald commented, "I feel happy and fortunate to have friends who are easy to work with and creative. They made their characters more interesting by their own input into the play". The 9 students and 2 children acting in the short play managed to make the audience laugh. "I would also like to say thank you to my lecturer, Maureen Syn, for writing the dialogs" continued Ronald.

Bands playing old and new songs

Following the play, there were solo or duet performances of various kinds by JV Chapman (a 2005 student), Shinie Pham and Kotaku Iha (2006 students), Koetsu Iha (a 2008 student), who played a traditional instrument from Okinawa - made using snakeskin - and Taro Prutisart (an IPC lecturer).

Last but not least, the IPC Singing Group performed again, singing some Christmas Songs and Carols. The audience joined in the carols and the concert finished at 3.30 pm.

A comment from one of the organisers, Gillian Claridge:

"I was really impressed with the students' contributions on and off the stage. They all socialised with the visitors, helped them into the Senior Common Room, served them tea and chatted. Many of our staff also gave up their time to help in various ways.

Judging by the comments of the visitors, I think the afternoon was a great success and very much appreciated."

<Back  |  ^Top