Abstract
In this research narrative, the focus is on one Singaporean musical group, SA (仨), made up of a group of three musicians (Andy (dizi/didgeridoo/vocal/electronics), Natalie (guzheng/electronics), Cheryl (drums/percussion/electronics)) that plays musical genres ranging from world, instrumental to experimental, using live looping, electronics and/or purely acoustic. More specifically, the research narrative traced the musical collaboration between SA(仨) with the Malay trio OrkeStar Trio (Riduan Zalani, Alhafiz Jamat, Ismahairie Putra Ishak), Indian trio Tamarind Sound Project (Raghavendran Rajasekaran, Sai Akilesh, Sai Vignesh) and percussionists Nizarfauzi Norlie and Ramu Thiruyanam towards Ethni-city II.
Ethnicity II simultaneously explores the roots and meeting of culture through the arts from the Chinese, Malay, Indian and Other (CMIO) communities. Singapore’s multi-racial setting has helped shaped a culture into one about understanding and tolerance, but we believe that our country can progress even further on that front. The project is a reflection of Singapore society as it is now and where we hope it will go. In Ethni-city II, we search for the one thing that is common to all our ethnicities – music – and in that process, break down the constructs around our different backgrounds and transcend into a single, harmonious coadunation (definition: united by growth). (Artistic Brief prepared by SA(仨) for the intended Ethni-city II repertoire programming)
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Notes
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“As the 2nd run of the series (Ethni-city) in Singapore’s Golden Jubilee year (2015), the series aimed to celebrate ethnic and cultural differences of Singaporeans by acknowledging the great diversity of language, food, art and culture that different ethnicities have brought about, while at the same time converging because we grew up living and experiencing the same environment. Ethni-city II aimed to do this through a group of young and innovative ethnic musicians, who will come together in a Musical Art Performance, showcasing their music which has deep roots in their individual ethnicities, while at the same time embracing and assimilating the various cultural influences from one another, as well as the West” (Program notes, Ethni-city II, 2015).
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Lum, CH. (2018). Collaborative Creativity: Perspectives from A Contemporary Instrumental Group in Singapore. In: Semionauts of Tradition. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1011-9_3
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