UTAR 1st Karaokay Competition

UTAR Music Club has recently organised its first singing competition, starting from auditions to semi-final to yesterday night's grand final. And Banking and Finance Y2S3 student Lam Sai Yuen (Max) emerged as the champion.

Themed The Path of Dreamz, the whole competition began with the audition sessions held for 4 days from 22nd to 26th March 2010, which saw the participation of 170 participants. The figure surpassed the number expected by the organising committee. The participants were informed of the results after evaluation from judges through videos captured during the audition sessions. And 20 participants were selected to compete in the next round.

These Top 20 participants contested in the semi-final round which was held one week after the auditions. On 2nd April, the semi-final round was held at DDK5 and the contestants were called out one by one to perform their songs. After all the participants have performed, the master of ceremony entertained the crowd while the judges finalised their results. And the Top 10 finalists were announced.

On 17th April, the grand final of the competition was held at the Heritage Hall from 6-11pm. A lot of students turned up for the event. After the arrival of the VIPs, the event kicked off with the Top 10 finalists performed We're All in This Together, a song from High School Musical. After that, the judges were introduced by Masters of Ceremony, Bani and Joey, following by opening speeches by Dr Lim Tuck Meng, the Dean of Faculty of Science and Mr Loy Seng Hoong, the organising chairman of the event. Later, DSA officer Ms Esther Loo joined Dr Lim and Mr Loy for the opening ceremony.

There were 3 rounds. In the first round, all the 10 participants performed a song of their choice and later the judges gave some feedbacks after their performances. Some contestants did quite well while some needed to improve their performances based on the comments given by Ms Evon Soh, Ms Angel Ang and Mr Khoo. After that, members of the Dance Club wowed the crowd with a few dance performances.

Then the competition resumed with the 2nd round--duet performance. All the 10 participants were divided into 5 pairs and performed songs they've chosen together. Interesting performances from all of them especially the boy-girl pair of Contestant #4 Lam Sai Yuen & Contestant #1 Cherrie Tan Xiang Wen (the rest were either all males or all females). Later, there's voting session from the audience to determine the Top 5.

The votes were counted after the ushers have collected them. While they're doing so, the Top 20 came on stage to entertain the audience. There were 3 performances: one from all the guys singing My Love by Westlife, one from all the girls and later all of them joined hands for the last performance. Supposed there were 10 participants, but only 9 were there. The last participant who wasn't there was Ezreena Jasmine, the sole Indian in the Top 20.

The Top 5 was later announced and the 5 participants who qualified for the final round were Contestant #3 Liew Kok Weong, Max, Contestant #5 Goey Heng Ee, Contestant #8 Dang Beh Lee and Contestant #10 P'ng Geok Thye. In the 3rd round, they're required to perform a fast song and all 5 of them did extremely well, turning the whole competition into a concert. And while one contestant was singing, the rest of the contestants went on the stage as well to dance.

After their performances, it's time for the judges to decide who to be crowned as champion. While they're doing that, Bani went around to ask for opinions who's gonna win. Of all the people he asked, only Max and Geok Thye's names were mentioned. Then, Bani went onto the stage to join his friends for some performances, which began with the famous song from Barney the purple dinosaur. Since Mother's Day is drawing near, Bani and friends performed Really Love You (真的爱你) a song in Cantonese by Beyond, which signified mother's love.

Later, there's souvenir presentation to the VIPs and the honourable judges by the organising chairman. Then, the moment that everyone has been watiing for came: the announcement of the results. The most popular singer award was won by Max, based to the votes for the most favourite contestant. The 2nd runner-up was Geok Thye, Goey won the 1st ruuner-up and Max made it double when he was annunced as the champion of the 1st Karaokay Competition. He then performed Black Silence (黑色幽默) by Jay Chou, the song that he sang during the first round. He even brought his girlfriend onto the stage while singing the song. How romantic!

The MCs, Bani and Joey, later invited all the organising committee members, helpers and ushers onto the stage. They also thanked everyone for spending their time to witness such an excitiing event before closing the event.


Editor's note I didn't really noticed what happened during the clasing ceremony cos I've left early. And since I haven't taken my dinner before going, I went mamaking at Ghany after returning from campus.