SING60: VOICES OF A NATION
GALA CONCERT
Voices of Singapore
Esplanade Concert Hall
Wednesday (8 October 2025)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 10 October 2025 with the title "Voices of Singapore celebrates sixth anniversary with pleasurable concert".
There is no vehicle of musical expression as personal as one’s voice, and music-making becomes pleasure multiplied manifold when people sing together. That is the credo of Voices of Singapore (VOS), the nation’s largest singing organisation, with more than 2000 members in 30 separate choirs.
VOS, founded by choral conductor and composer Darius Lim, celebrated its 6th anniversary with an enjoyable mega-concert showcasing over 400 voices led by nine different choral conductors. While diversity, equity and inclusivity (DEI) has become divisive in certain nations, these are the very qualities that hold Singapore together, evident by variety of musical items on show.
The evening kicked off with VOS Children’s Choir (led by Lim Jing Xuan) singing Liong Kit Yeng’s Little Red Dot, a fun piece that recounted what makes Singapore unique – local food and the MRT. Nostalgia reigned when VOS Ladies Choir (Stephenie Lee) with Jeremy Wong on pipa took on a Mandarin medley of Xinyao by Liang Wern Fook, Tan Kian Chin and Bok Sek Ying, Shi Shui Chang Liu (细水长流) and Xiao Ren Wu De Xin Sheng (小人物的心声), songs which ruled the waves during the 1980s.
School children of a certain age will remember the Malay words to Zubir Said’s Semoga Bahagia, but with VOS City Chorus (Chong Wai Lun) and soloist Syakirah Noble, the unusually harmonised song took on jazzy vibes that were unthinkable years ago. Similarly, Malay song Dayung Sampan sung by VOS Men (Justin Goh) and accompanied by Artusik Multiethnic Ensemble had an unexpected martial edge. These fresh twists brought a new gloss to these old favourites.
Arguably the evening’s most entertaining item was the VOS Youth Choir (Vicknesvari Vadivalagan) and soloist Thirupurasundari S in Tamil songs Munnaeru Vaalibaa and Balleilakka. Backed by the Singapore Indian Orchestra and Choir, and three sari-clad dancers, this came close to a full-blown Kollywood scene at its most melodramatic. VOS Children’s Choir returned in Darius Lim’s Dragon Dance of Shang, a song with a strong film music feel accompanied by projected cartoon animations.
The second half, accompanied by SING60 Band, featured all of VOS’s community choirs, including VOS Starlight Voices (Tham Pei Wen) featuring special needs children in Lim’s touching Our Story. VOS Silver Voices (Sean Foo) rolled back the decades with Chen Gexin’s Rose, Rose I Love You while the unauditioned VOS Chorus of the People (Lim) were empowered by the words of The Power of the Dream and We Will Get There. Purely a cappella was Eric Whitacre’s Sleep, beautifully sung by VOS State Choirs (Lim) while chilling by the glow of candlelight.
There was also an audience sing-along led by Voices of COMO Lifestyle Group, National Kidney Foundation and Coronation Singers (Gerald Tan) in If We Hold On Together, You Raise Me Up and Dancing Queen.
For the grand finale, all the VOS Choirs came together for what must be Singapore’s second national anthem: Home. The biggest surprise was the unscripted appearance by the man himself, Dick Lee in the flesh, singing his perennial classic. The abiding take-home of the evening: a people that sings together stays together.
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