I did not realise at that time – when the idea of having a gathering of young people to play music, sing, write and draw – that trying to organise an event of this size single-handedly, would be considered dangerous (one could self-combust from all the anxiety!) and executing it would be even more lethal (one could actually be totally incinerated!). Thankfully, none of the fiery nightmares occurred. The only fire that was lit yesterday was the passion emanated from the performers who played and who sang with all their hearts. The audience was visibly impressed and their show of appreciation was warmly felt throughout the entire lobby of the KL Performing Arts Center from their thunderous applause!

Turns out, getting the venue and permission to use the facilities was the easiest part. That I could do remotely on my smart phone. But when it came to the actual day when hardware needed to be connected together, that posed a bit of a problem for this mechanophobic (fearful of machines) auntie! Especially those that involve lots of wires. Long ones especially.

To my great relief, there were plenty of heroes to save the day for me! First, Izzy came to the rescue by agreeing to be our emcee (plus he had signed up to sing an Elvis Presley number with Rebecca too)! Here’s proud mama Aznani taking a shot at stardom 🙂

Then papa Cliff came to the rescue by helping me connect the wire from the microphone to the speaker.

Photo credit: Chong See Ming

Then, papa Khek Loong came with 3 heavy speakers to add volume to the whole event! Not to mention his 3 beautiful daughters who added their voices too!

And our bubbly auntie See Ming helped take beautiful photos for us to be preserved for posterity.

Photo credit: Chong See Ming

And a shout out to Nur for conducting the Art Jam, to Arian and Alimi for conducting the Writing Jam. We are indeed very blessed and grateful to all these wonderful heroes!

Artistic Nur with proud mama Surya. Nur also presented a song titled “Waltz” by Fiona Apple.

Photo credit: Chong See Ming

Art Jam photo credit: Chong See Ming

Arian & Alimi were at hand to conduct the writing jam.

Writing Jam Photo credit: Chong See Ming

And a BIG THANK YOU to all the performers who had signed up and turned up to perform for us! And all the wonderful people who had come to support us!

(WE FORGOT TO TAKE A GROUP PHOTO !!!) We’ll do better next time😅

Ryan kicked the Youth jam off with Harpsichord player and Minuet in G!

Young and handsome Mithraan played 1. Squirrels Lullaby 2.Honey Bee March 3.Sweet Dance (Photo credit: Jackie Yap)

Ci-en gave us JS Bach’s Minuet in G and Musette in D (Photo credit: Chong See Ming)

Tan Gien Lung gave us “All Falls Down” by Alan Walker and Beethoven’s Fur Elise. (Photo credit: Jackie Yap)

Can you see the two octogenarians in the audience? They are my mom and mom-in-law!

Kye Mun & mama Jackie just before his playing of 1. 我们不一样 (wo men bu yi yang) 2. 海阔天空 (hai kuo tian kong)

Maestro Alimi playing a personal favourite: Rachmaninov Prelude in C Sharp minor Op3 no.2

The Piano Boys (From left to right: Alimi, Yun Zhe – played Chopin Nocturne Op.9 no.2 in E flat, Xuanyu played The Entertainer by S. Joplin, and Arian played Waltz in A minor B150 posthumous) photo credit: Chong See Ming

Yu Xi, Ci-en & Yu Xin are The Piano Girls! Yu Xi played Turkish March by Mozart and Yu Xin gave us Joe Hisashi’s “Ponyo” (Photo credit: Chong See Ming)

Lyana gave us ABBA’s MAMA MIA – an acoustic version! (Photo credit: Jackie Yap)

Lachu (Lashvini V.G.) gave us

Beautiful Thing by Grace Vanderwaal (Photo credit Chong See Ming)

And the finale was presented by Edna & Esther Lim and sister. They sang Twinkle litle Star (Chinese song）composed by Edna (Photo credit: Chong See Ming)

Oh and I gave a talk (as promised) on Self-directed Learning: How to Spark Joy in Learning, using my “PowerPoint” 😉 (More on this in my next post!)

Photo credit: Chong See Ming

I would also like to record my thanks and gratitude to the management and staff of the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Center for lending us full support towards holding this event at theoir beautiful venue!

This has certainly given us the motivation to hold more Youth Jams in the near future! So, stay tuned for our next one!