The Lexus Cup

I had the honour of performing for Singapore's
former Prime Minister, the present Senior Minister
Mr. Goh Chok Tong and his wife
at the banquet to commemorate the Lexus Cup
(An international women's golf tournament) on December 11th 2005.

The event was held at one of the ballrooms at the Mandarin
Oriental at Marina Bay.
The had a bunch of security personnel conducting bomb
sweeps to make sure no threats would be present and they
even had metal detectors at the entrances to screen
everyone going into the ballroom. I guess that's what
has to be done to ensure the safety of political dignitaries.

It must be incredibly limiting to have to take precautions
like that when one is such a high profile public, political figure like Senior Minister Mr. Goh Chok Tong. I guess it's the same for all who are or have
been Prime Ministers and Presidents of countries throughout the world.
It must feel like an invisible cage...having security personnel
nanny you 24 hours a day and not being able to move about incognito,
or blend in with the crowd.

Adrienne had to get her cello scanned as well. The police were
quite baffled when they first saw her cello case *grin* then they
quickly relaxed when they realised that it was a musical instrument.

It was funny how Adrienne kept on getting stared at.
I guess Singaporeans are not used to seeing a 6 ft.tall lady with curly
blonde long hair walking around with a cello!

Both Adrienne and I had a quick bite at the dinner table before
playing our set. Daryl David was the host and at 9.30 p.m he introduced
us on stage and we started off our set.

I was initially pretty nervous,but I quickly started to relax and smile
when people began clapping once we launched into the opening piano riffs of "Save Me".
It was altogether a lovely set and we played "Angel in Disguise",
"Safe in a Crazy World", "Everything in its Time", "Free"
and "Mr. Beasley" among others.

The Steinway baby grand was also a wonderfully expressive instrument to play
and Adrienne did a wonderful job on the cello.