pianomania: CULTURAL MEDALLION EXHIBITION @ THE ARTS HOUSE

CELEBRATING THE

CULTURAL MEDALLION

If you happen to be in the vicinity of Victoria Concert Hall / Theatre and have a half hour or so to spare, why not visit the exhibition of the Cultural Medallion at The Arts House? Located at its ground floor (formerly occupied by a gift shop and café), here is a nostalgic look at the artists who have defined Singapore’s cultural scene over the past half-century and more.

Inaugurated in 1980, the Cultural Medallion (CM) is Singapore’s highest accolade for the arts awarded by the government, and stands apart from the many thousands of service awards dished out annually in the National Day Awards. Only a select handful of artists are awarded each year. There were only two recipients this year and just 132 CMs have been awarded in total. In short, it is a very special and rare privilege to receive one.

How many of these Cultural Medallion
recipients can you name?

There are three chambers for the exhibition, the first comprising photo discs of each CM recipient. How many of them can you name? Just pick a familiar face and flip it around for the name and the year in which his or her CM was presented. The second and third chambers includes archival photos from ceremonies over the years as well as video interviews. There is an interactive element and also a sitting area with reference books on all the recipients on loan from the National Library Board.

This exhibitions keeps alive the invaluable work contributed by these artists as well as refresh our memories on the very people who made us appreciate and value art. I was particularly thrilled to see photos of the men who facilitated and encouraged my own modest journey in the arts. They presented me my first paid accompaniment job (David Lim), my first editorship of a newsletter and programme notes writing gig (Lim Yau), my first paid research job (Paul and Alex Abisheganaden), and there are many others whom I have written about for The Straits Times and this blog.

Early years of the Cultural Medallion.
Can you identify some of the winners?

As more artists of significance emerge from within our ever-thriving arts scene, it becomes even more difficult to receive the CM. One cannot help but feel that many deserving artists in our midst who have yet to receive this accolade would have been recognised had they been born a decade or two earlier. The reverse is also true, to ponder the notion that some recipients would not have gotten their award had they emerged a decade or two later. In short, the competition is much stiffer and the bar has been set so much higher for today’s rising artists, such that a CM really becomes more treasurable an achievement than it would have been previously.

It took some time before artists in the field
of popular music and entertainment were finally
recognised, including Jeremy Monteiro (above),
Dick Lee, Liang Wern Fook and Jerry Soliano.

Another quibble of mine is the failure of the CM to acknowledge grouped rather than individual artistic endeavour. As such, it remains elusive to deserving groups like the T’ang Quartet (Ng Yu Ying, Ang Chek Meng, Lionel Tan and Leslie Tan) and the incomparable piano duo of Dennis Lee and Toh Chee Hung, whose joint efforts surpass individual ones. Artists better known as teachers and pedagogues such as Lucien Wang, Victor Doggett, Yu Chun Yee and Ong Lip Tat (to name only the piano people) have been bypassed. Perhaps a new category of Arts Awards may be created to honour these people. For political reasons, artists like pianists Melvyn Tan and the fellow who wrote Crazy Rich Asians will doubtlessly be overlooked.