The Band Lab brought SIBOCFest 2026 to a triumphant close with its Finale Gala Concert, held on 5 September 2026 at Lodge Secondary School, Kuching. In a sold-out hall, nearly 300 musicians and singers took to one stage for the culmination of the four-day Sarawak International Band, Orchestra & Choir Festival — the largest ensemble The Band Lab has ever assembled for a single performance.

Staged under the festival theme "Global Sounds, Sarawak Ground," the concert was directed by Guest Conductor Mr Ken-ichi Watanabe, invited through the Hokkaido University of Education. It was the first SIBOCFest finale to unite three full faculties — Concert Band, String Orchestra and, for the first time, a Modern Choir — turning four days of workshops, sectionals and tutti rehearsals into a single afternoon of music.

The programme opened with the young players of Baby Dream Machine, a Kuching youth ensemble whose members range from just six to seventeen years old, before the festival's own divisions took the stage. The Modern Choir performed Someone Like You and a Disney Love Medley, followed by a showcase from the choir tutors, with soprano Angelica Oquendo and pianist Dell Lawrence performing Never Enough. The String Orchestra, presented in collaboration with the Euroasia Association of Performing Arts, followed with Blue Rhythmico and Leroy Anderson's The Typewriter.

After the interval, the wind and percussion players returned in force. The Band Lab Japan International Ensemble, joined by the festival's wind and percussion tutors, performed Alfred Reed's El Camino Real, before the massed Concert Band delivered Apple Pie March and Sejahtera Malaysia. The concert reached its height as all 300 performers joined as one full orchestra and choir for The Power of the Dream, featuring guest vocalist Chien Ng — closing with the world premiere of Selamat Datang ke Bumi Kenyalang ("Welcome to the Land of the Hornbills"), a new work written to celebrate Sarawak.

Organised by The Band Lab (Persatuan Wind Orkestra Kuching) together with The Band Lab Japan, and supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Sarawak, the Gala Concert was the public face of a festival staged within the year of Visit Malaysia 2026. Founder and Festival Director Jesmond Siew opened the afternoon, welcoming an audience that filled the venue to capacity.

The SIBOCFest 2026 Finale Gala Concert is the clearest demonstration of what The Band Lab can stage in Sarawak: an international-standard orchestra concert in Kuching that brings players from Japan and across Asia together with local musicians and singers, from six-year-olds to seasoned professionals, on one stage. For any organisation looking to commission a large-scale concert or a landmark cultural moment in Kuching, it is proof of the scale and polish The Band Lab delivers.