Source: My UM
‘Somewhere over the rainbow, I believe you can find it, and then share this journey with me…’ This is a song called ‘Friend of the Stars’, written and sung by Rachel Lao, a fourth-year student from the Department of Accounting and Information Management. This song won the My Favorite Song Award at a local original music competition held earlier.
‘I wrote this song to encourage people with autism,’ says Lao. ‘I went to the library to look for books on autism, hoping to find some inspiration for the song.’ Lao admits that she rarely has the chance to meet autistic people, but in the process of writing the song, she realised that people with autism are actually not much different from ordinary people; they are just not very good at verbalising their feelings. ‘Best Buddies Macau Association, which is the or ganisation that invited me to write the song, has a best buddies programme. This programme pairs each volunteer with a person with autism. The volunteers take care of their autistic partners and keep them company for a year as a friend. But what usually happens at the end of the one-year programme is that the volunteers and their autistic friends have established such a deep bond that many of them become lifelong friends,’ says Lao. This touches her deeply. She feels the reliable companionship provided by the volunteers to their autistic friends is like the light of stars shining on the faces of innocent children, so she wrote this insight into the song.
Lao never forces herself to write songs. She likes to draw inspiration from the little moments of everyday life and has the habit of writing in the journal every day. ‘The melody of the song came to me while I was riding on a bus, and despite being surrounded by lots of people, I took out my cell phone and recorded the melody right then and there,’ she says.
Lao has loved singing since childhood. In her sophomore year in college, she started to teach herself to play the guitar because of the influence of her musician friends. In her third year at UM, she participated in a campus singing competition for the first time and emerged as the second runner -up. It was through the ‘Good Voice’ Singing Competition, an event organised by the Rotaract Club of Macau, that more people heard her voice. ‘W inning a prize was certainly encouraging and boosted my confidence in singing,’ she says. With a girl-next-door image, this rookie singer-songwriter has accumulated quite a legion of loyal fans over the past year . She believes social media has made it easier for talented musicians to attract attention and for Macao-produced original music to reach a Lar ger audience.
‘Friend of the Stars’ is not the only song she has created. She also routinely sings songs and writes music for videos on the social media ‘Manner ’. ‘520’, a song on Manner adapted from ‘A Little Happiness’, which she sang with another singer , earlier went viral on the internet and made more people know her. With the support of her friends, she has opened a fan page on Facebook. She has often performed on campus as a member of ‘Bom dia’, a student band from the Henry Fok Pearl Jubilee College.
In addition to singing, Lao has also served as the emcee at various events on campus. ‘UM gives me a lot of room to showcase my musical talents and boosted my confidence on stage. The experience gained from playing music on campus and the positive feedback from my fellow students have made me more determined that even after graduation I will not give up music,’ she says.
