A Fiery and Musical Close to the Night Festival 2014

Visitors raise their cameras and smart phones to shoot the fire performance by Austrian group Phoenix Fire Dancers at the National Museum of Singapore during the 2nd last night of the Singapore Night Festival. They were accompanied by musicians from William Close’s Earth Harp Collective providing the musical sound track.

The 7th installation of Singapore Night Festival came to a close with a performance by Earth Harp musician William Close and the Phoenix Fire Dancers.

I was rather busy for the last couple of weeks ending with a long Friday and had originally intended to give it a miss as I was rather tired. However, after seeing photos of the rehearsals on Facebook, I decided that I shouldn’t miss out on this, so I dragged myself to the venue as there was still enough time to get there for the last performance of the night at 11:15pm.

William Close immersed in his music as he performs on his Earth Harp amidst coloured lights in the background.

Expectedly, there was a huge crowd when I arrived, but as the crowd from the previous show were leaving, I managed to squeeze my way in eventually. I’d have loved to be closer to the stage where Phoenix were performing but it was just too crowded to get there. Once again, I was right in front of William Close.

Rich Sherwood on the Drum Cloud

The pieces performed were the same as the 1st weekend of the Night Festival which I attended but what wowed me was the finale. As with the previous performance, Close did his own rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon in D on his Earth Harp, this time accompanied by a female vocalist.

The female vocalist and guitarist accompanying William Close in the last piece, a rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon in D.

Near the end, the Phoenix Fire Dancers from Austria came on stage with their fiery performance. Unfortunately, from my position, I was unable to see them. I did, however, see their pyrotechnics and laser beams. I realised many people in front of me were raising their cameras and smart phones to shoot, so I did likewise and took several shots.

The opening shot of this post turned out to be the best, clearly showing both the lit LCD screens, the pyrotechnics from Phoenix and the façade of the National Museum of Singapore. Together with the projection of the “Singapore Night Festival”, this helped to give some context of the event.

The performance sure didn’t disappoint. Looking forward to next year’s installation!

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