High Life

HIGH LIFE 103 W ater Singers is a female a cappella group based in Macau. Combining elements of drama, the live performances of Water Singers always offer a unique musical experience to the audience, so it was no surprise to seem them invited to perform at the Beishan World Music Festival in Zhuhai. Originally used in religious music – especially church music – a cappella is specifically group or solo singing without instrumental accompaniment. In 2014, Lin Shihan, a student at Macao Polytechnic Institute, invited her schoolmates Loi Nok Man, Yang Sijia and Lei Sin Ian – who were all studying classic music at the time – to establishWater Singers. “We were just thinking that this group could perform and earn us some study credits from school,” Lin laughs. “We all have backgrounds in classical music but we also feel that sometimes there are too many restrictions in that area. We’d like to explore something boundless, something we all like to do, therefore Water Singers was founded … but we never expected it would last this long.” Water Singers is dedicated to exploring the possibilities of all-girl a cappella and the group’s performance repertoire includes not only adapted folk songs and pop music but also religious songs and experimental music. They also attempt some original musical theater creations.