Posts tagged "events"

Fill Your Life with Music (And Fairies)

Photo taken on Minolta Hi-Matic 7S II, Fuji Superia 400, developed and scanned at Underdog Film Lab, Oakland

Another photo from another concert I walked to from home.

We were invited to attend a gala concert for the New Century Chamber Orchestra. I'd gone to a show some time ago, really liked it, wrote about it, and met some of the folks involved through that.

It was our first time attending a high society event in San Francisco. There was wonderful music. The multiple Grammy-winning San Francisco Girls Chorus sang a few select pieces, and we were also treated to the 'dark, velvety' operatic voice of Nikola Printz.

Since the theme of the evening was 'Out of the Woods', there were also fairies. Naturally. I took a photo of one of them here.

Envelop SF

When we first moved to San Francisco, I was excited to have a new environment but I was not sure I would enjoy the city as much. My previous visits to the city had been mostly work/tech related. While I love many of my co-workers and friends in big tech and in startups, parts of San Francisco felt.. like a tech mono-culture.

Consciously going out to things and meeting new people, making friends with people who have interests outside of tech, through sports, volunteering or music activities, has changed my relationship to this city.

In this series of posts, I will write about the events, venues and activities I have enjoyed in San Francisco.

Music used to be a huge part of my life. From the time I was six or seven, I was in band practice or piano lessons a few times a week. Without music, my life might have turned out different. Not having much music in the last decade or so was a terrible idea, so I'm now furiously trying to get it all back. Piano lessons, jazz clarinet lessons, going to shows, meeting new friends who also like music... I have enjoyed the access to top musicians and teachers, and to excellent shows of all genres nearly every single day.

Envelop SF popped up on my radar when I was looking for music events: they were hosting a Flaming Lips listening party for Zaireeka, the band's 1997 experimental album that I'd never heard (mainly because in 1997 you needed to put 4 CDs in 4 players and press play all at once).

(image from Envelop)

At first, I had no idea what these shows were. Were the Flaming Lips in town? Was it a live show? It was actually cooler than that. Envelop is a non-profit that runs an immersive audio venue in the lower Dogpatch (and another one in Salt Lake City, with popups and satellites elsewhere).

I don't know much about audio engineering or sound design, or what 'spatial music performances' are, but as I attended their session for the Flaming Lips' Zaireeka I quickly became a fan.

The venue in San Francisco is in a tiny space in an industrial area near the Dogpatch, with dim lighting, and ambience that reminded me of a yoga studio mashed up with a private DJ set. 32 speakers at the venue are positioned in a sphere, with the audience seated on foldable chairs on the floor, surrouned by said speakers. "The entire room is an instrument" was the experience they promised, and it really did feel that way. This immersive experience is powered by their open source audio software that works with Ableton Live 10.

A trust-based minibar rounded up the experience by providing for the wine, beer, tea and water you might want to sip while listening to music.

While I was initially confused by why I might want to experience 'spatial music', I came away from it a fan. I think it would be a good way for a music lover to experience music they know and love in a totally new way, with audiophile technology that would be difficult to create at home. I plan to listen to Miles Davis, Pink Floyd and Coltrane there as I think their music can be experienced differently in this environment.

Next week, jazz shows with new jazz friends. Jazz hands!

So You Want To Be A Startup Founder

I was asked to speak at a local university's Young Entrepreneur Network event. Sometimes, I say yes to these things.

For anyone interested, here are the slides.

I wanted to share, mostly, my personal journey — how I got here. I also wanted to share some strategies for thinking about creating a startup if you're starting from the absolute beginning, like I was.

Click through to see the notes, which contain slightly more info than what's on the deck.

Happy to receive any feedback or answer any questions. Email address on the last slide.

Culture Kitchen 2: Little Myanmar

If you are anything like me, you've walked by Peninsula Plaza all the time and perhaps even entered it when you've needed to buy cameras and stuff. You've probably also wondered about all the wondrous things there. What is the paste they are mixing, what is this delicious-looking food and how can I have some of it, if only I knew what to order?

I've had the luck to spend more time in Myanmar in recent times, and I absolutely adore the country. I figured it would be only fitting to feature the community in Singapore for the next Culture Kitchen, seeing as that there's an entire building in downtown Singapore that caters to that community.

With a bunch of intrepid volunteers' help, I'm happy to announce Culture Kitchen 2: Little Myanmar. We'll have lunch featuring the best-of Burmese cuisine, you'll get to meet and mingle with the Burmese community, we'll also screen "The City Where They Live", a documentary about Meiktila's community and youth leaders and how they worked to heal the city after the horrific communal violence of 2013. We'll then do a Q&A with the filmmakers live from Yangon before kicking off a walking tour of Little Myanmar.

Sound good? Get your tickets here, there are just 19 seats left.

Gyanada Foundation Soft Launch

I've thrown myself headlong into work — real work, and then foundation work.

India is an important part of my life and I owe everything to her. Over the past couple of months, my friends and I have been busy putting a little NGO together, the Gyanada Foundation.

Today (Tues, 12 March) between 7 and 9 in the evening, I'll be hosting our soft launch at Artistry, 17 Jalan Pinang.

Here are the event details! Hope to see you there.

Past Forward: A Heritage Blogging and Social Media Workshop

My friend Yu-Mei is putting together a blogging and social media workshop as part of HeritageFest, a NHB event.

I'll be speaking with Rosenah Omar at 3pm, on a panel moderated by Notabilia, although I do wish I could split myself and attend the panel on 1960s music at the same time! Here's the schedule for the day, and here's the Facebook event page. Hope to see you there!

Programme:

2:00 p.m.

Going Past Forward: The art of blogging or writing online about Singapore heritage

1. Lam Chun See

2. Ivan Chew, Singapore Memory Project

3. Dan Koh, POSKOD.SG

2:45 p.m.

Tea break

3:00 p.m.

Blog What You Know: The Heritage of Everyday Life

1. Adrianna Tan

2. Rosenah Omar

OR

3:00 p.m.

Not Just Nostalgia: Music of the 1960s

1. Andy Lim

2. Georgiana Glass (and at Mod-ified music)

3:45 p.m.

A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words

1. Char Lee

2. Zakaria Zainal

OR

3:45 p.m.

Balik Kampung: Blogging about Your Neighbourhood

1. Victor Yue

2. Kwek Li Yong

4:30 p.m.

END

4:45 p.m.

Special tour (optional): Victor Yue's Chinatown or Kwek Li Yong's Queenstown