MEMOIRS IN MUSIC
Nanyang Collective
Esplanade Recital Studio
Tuesday (9 December 2025)
This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 December 2025 with the title "Musical narrative of Singapore history deserves encore".
The SG60 commemoration continued with Memoirs In Music, a multi-disciplinary hour-long concert presentation by Nanyang Collective conducted by Dedric Wong. Its timing, coinciding with the Albatross File public exhibition at the National Library Board, seemed almost uncanny but it tapped on our nation’s sense of becoming by facing up to Singapore’s history as a modern city-state.
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| Photo: Aaron Ang |
The story and script by Jasmin Wong thankfully avoided jingoism and self-congratulation, instead took on a wistfulness that people of a certain age tend to harbour while looking at the past. Actor Clement Yeo played the part of storyteller by being Everyman, with multiple roles including children and adults relating their accounts in both English and a smattering of Mandarin.
In these assorted vignettes, not necessarily presented in a chronological order, one may relate to by suggesting, “Hey, that’s me!” while others may appear as vague and tenuous memories.
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| Photo: Aaron Ang |
The concert opened with musicians placed within the audience and behind, playing isolated tunes and melodies before gathering onstage to form the ensemble proper. This was representative of diverse peoples who hailed from different lands coming together in composer Gu Wei’s Hope / Divergence, the opening work.
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| Photo: Aaron Ang |
One might have expected jarring dissonances when instruments from the West (violin, cello, clarinet and euphonium) collide headlong with Chinese (pipa and sheng), Indian (veena), Indonesian (gamelan and suling) and those that cross cultures (accordion and percussion).
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| Photo: Aaron Ang |
But no, the music remained remarkably harmonious for most part including Gu’s Fracture / Ascent, representing separation from Malaysia. If truth be told, Singapore’s independence was not exactly bloodless, with dozens paying with their lives in 1964 race riots, leading to the eventual split.
Symbolism was strong in the running tableaux, especially in Yeo’s obsessive activity in building, planting, watering and cultivating. Soil and sand littered centrestage, plants were uprooted and re-potted, Lego bricks were assembled into various structures, and assorted toys were played with.
One is soon guided into the notion that ever-busy Everyman was encapsulated in a singular person, the founding prime minister. To his credit, he never had to proclaim, “I am Lee Kuan Yew!”
Young Artist Award recipient Chen Zhangyi’s segment From Scratch related events including the 1961 Bukit Ho Swee fire (dramatic shouting), the 2004 Nicoll Highway MRT collapse (Lego pieces falling apart), and the 1981 completion of Changi Airport (toy planes taking off). Memories are made of these, and with Cultural Medallion recipient Eric Watson’s Passing The Baton and Legacy And Beyond / After The Rain, one is transported to present times.
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| Photo: Aaron Ang |
It did not matter if one could not distinguish when each work ended and the next began, as the musical narrative accompanying the acting was seamless. The multiple instrumental parts were helmed by no less than virtuosos, and one could easily enjoy their work even if one was no longer following the story. Memoirs In Music deserves to be replayed, at least to a bigger audience that gathered on this lazy Tuesday evening.
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| Photo: Aaron Ang |
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