An audience of three

Anna Harvey, the great-granddaughter of former pre-War headmaster, Leslie William Arnold, is a mezzo-soprano with the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Dusseldorf, Germany. Before holidaying in Penang, she was performing the role of Flosshilde in Richard Wagner's opera, Das Rheingold, in Singapore. And now in Penang, she was attempting to discover her roots. The journey took her to the Archives Room at Penang Free School where suddenly, she spied the original music score of the School Rally, written by Gerard Reutens.

The professional singer that she was, Anna immediately put her voice to the music score. Singing acapella. Myself standing nearby was surprised. She hadn't heard the School Rally before, not even aware of it, and yet here, her melodious voice rang out strongly with that all familiar tune. Only different was that hers was a golden-throated rendition compared to the boisterous versions sung by the Old and Present Frees.

But her melody soon ran out because the music score in the Archives Room was locked in a glass cabinet and the second page couldn't be turned. So what was there to do? There was a solution at hand. I reached for the stack of old school magazines and chose one with the music score in one of the pages.

There, I thrusted the opened page before Anna. Without hesitation and with only a glance at the page to ensure that the whole song was complete, she wanted to sing again. Wait wait, I implored here. Let me get ready first. And so, here it is, with her permission, the Penang Free School Rally as has never been heard before. Bonus: Anna sang all three verses!!

By the way, why do I call this story "an audience of three"? That's because there were only three people in the Archives room that day: myself, Ch'ng Geam Liang and the teacher-in-charge of the School Archives.