Tales of Harmonia

A tale of harmony — one of engineering, entrepreneurship, and entertainment

During my first year of university I founded a choir called “Tales of Harmonia.” I was studying industrial engineering at the time and had been a musician since I was eight, playing the piano & trombone and singing in various choirs. There were three major choirs at the University of Toronto, but they were all focused on one genre of music each: classical, jazz or pop. I’ve always been an interdisciplinary thinker, so I decided that if there weren’t any high-quality choirs that sang in more than one genre, I’d create my own. If you can beat them, then don’t join them! I sort of reversed the age-old adage.

That first summer back in Winnipeg, where I grew up since age five (I was born in China), I arranged my first songs for the choir. They were mostly from unconventional sources, like “Leaves on the Vine,” from the cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender, and “Fiat Lux,” from the animé adaptation of “Tales of Symphonia,” a Japanese role-playing game. I was especially proud of that song because it satisfied a small dream of mine: it’s a classical-type song but from my all-time favourite video game series, and it’s from an obscure and underrated source. I also came up with an arrangement I called “The Meow Mix,” a medley of songs about cats that included “The Cat Came Back,” “Smelly Cat” from Friends, “Soft Kitty” from the sitcom The Big Bang Theory and “Everybody Wants to be a Cat” from The Aristocats.

Every year as our repertoire grew, we went from a capella pieces to ones accompanied by a piano, to including a beat boxer, and then even ended up with our very own mini-orchestra. I was both managing and conducting; it was a massively rewarding and revealing experience. As I added people to executive positions one by one, I ended up forming a dream team of executives, who I would pass eventually the direction on to.

My proudest moment was a musical we held a few months after I’d stepped down. There was an orchestra with about thirty members, plus another thirty in the choir. It took place inside a beautiful venue called The Church of the Redeemer by Bloor and Avenue Road. Seeing all that come to fruition was a zenith in my life with the choir. It was breathtaking and awe-inspiring to watch it all from the sidelines while I helped out as a crew member.

One of its long-time members, Sarah Wensley, was incredibly introverted when she first joined the choir but through it all was able to gain significant self-confidence. Imagine my face when her mother told me, “You’ve really brought her out of her shell.” I was only 20 at the time and had never thought I’d be able to have that sort of profound impact on someone’s life. Given the kind of upbringing I had, one of being bullied a lot it was truly a life-changing moment for me.

This entire experience sparked my entrepreneurial spirit, as well as my curiosity about tech and innovation. Growing up I hated business, which I thought was full of greed, and was ambivalent about tech. Now I work in the blockchain industry. I’ve travelled the world, gave digital nomadism a shot, participated in several hackathons and fellowships, and am only one degree away from some of the most influential people in tech and entrepreneurship thanks to my membership of the Thiel Foundation and the 1517 Fund community. I never thought that I’d end up pursuing all these things in the worlds of tech, startups, and entrepreneurship.

During my teenage years, I would often air-conduct the songs I’d listened to which represented a mini-dream of mine — to conduct a real-life group of musicians. Seeing Tales of Harmonia come to fruition was what led me into my current areas of focus — blockchain, design, and social impact. It did so because it allowed me to realize my dream as well and learn that I want to create scalable, sustainable, and systemic impact. To be able to see how I was able to change people’s lives with the simple vibrating of air between vocal chords has been nothing short of invigorating!

To learn more about the choir, please visit the following links:

Website: http://talesofharmonia.sa.utoronto.ca/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TalesofHarmonia

Featured in the Awesome Music Project: https://www.theawesomemusicproject.com