Ivy O

glitter and grey
A blog about living in my new home, Hong Kong

There will not be many (re: any) blog posts regarding my singing experiences this upcoming year as I recently moved to Hong Kong (yes, Hong Kong!) with my fiancé. We are living here (a city that is also known to many as the Pearl of the Orient) to study and work. Although I will not be posting about performances in Ottawa, please follow my new blog which will be documenting my experience adjusting to life in a skyscraper city and my adventures that are bound to happen.

--Ivy

Four Seasons of Spring

0 comments

Last night was a pretty big milestone in my singing career since it was the first time I had ever performed at the National Arts Centre! Although it was not Southam Hall, it was still an honour and a dream to be on stage at the NAC. The Four Seasons of Spring concert held yesterday night was part of the Ottawa Vietnamese community's calendar of Asian Heritage Month-related events. Featured at the concert was Dat Nguyen, an accomplished musician and artist who was born in Vietnam in 1970, blind from birth and orphaned at age 5. Dat wowed the audience last night by demonstrating tremendous skill and talent on his guitar - a truly inspirational experience, and one I'll certainly never forget.

Photo by me

Photo by Robert S. Vibert

Remembering Canadian Idol

0 comments

My little 12 year-old cousin recently decided to do a search for me on YouTube and came across a 30 second video that someone posted of my Canadian Idol audition back in 2005. The discovery of the video definitely brought back a lot of memories, both good and bad, of my experience with Canadian Idol. After posting it to my personal profile on Facebook, I received many comments from friends that I should "definitely try out again!" Although I am happy to have had the experience of being a Canadian Idol Top 100 finalist, I would never go through with it again.

I need to mention that Canadian Idol was not holding auditions in Ottawa the year that I tried out (2005) so my parents and I headed to Sudbury for my audition. There were only four Ottawanians that made it to the Top 100 in Season 3, and three out of the four people came right from my secondary school, Notre Dame High School (710 Broadview Avenue): Rachelle Richard, Emily Vinette (who was part of the Top 10) and myself.

Here is the footage of me singing "You Can't Hurry Love" and getting my "gold ticket" to Toronto which was aired on television.

*Disclaimer: I was very nervous, hence my rushing of the song. Also, I was in front of the judges for a good twenty minutes and sang at least five different songs before they gave me a gold ticket, which was obviously edited out.

Hoi Cho Tet 2012 (Year of the Dragon)

0 comments

With it being the Year of the Dragon (I was born under the year of this Chinese zodiac animal!), I could not let the opportunity to help the Vietnamese community of Ottawa with the celebration slip away. I had a lot of fun performing for this year's Hoi Cho Tet, as always, and would like to share the poster from this year's event, as well as a video of my rendition of Leona Lewis' "Run".

Poster of Hoi Cho Tet 2012