Colorado kids’ choir goes viral with Malay performance

BY: Patrick Beech

The Colorado Children’s Chorale is taking local TikTok by storm following their performance of Kira! (count) in Bahasa Melayu.

Choreographer Fairuz Fee recently shared a video of the singing group’s performance at their spring concert this year, led by Tracey Wong, on his TikTok account.

The concert was in April, but it only just hit local Tiktok with Fairuz’s sharing

Fairuz choreographed the movement for Kira!, which is a piece written by Wong upon being commissioned by the group’s artistic director Emily Crile.

The piece is described as a playful three-part treble choir composition which is a nod to Malay folk songs that merge counting and sage advice, presented through popular Malay proverbs such as “sediakan payung sebelum hujan”.

Wong, who is a Malaysian based in Canada’s Ontario, is a choral conductor, music educator, composer, vocalist and pianist.

She is the first Malaysian composer to have two pieces published by Oxford University Press under the Songbird Series.

Fairuz meanwhile is a dance choreographer with over 240,000 followers on TikTok, where he also shared the process behind coming up with the movements in Kira!