continuing the celebrations of Singapore's National Day 2010

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) is keeping its jazz groove going. After performing with Chris Brubeck's Triple Play jazz trio in 2007 and last year, (which was just fabulous) it has teamed up with the Jeremy Monteiro Trio to kick off its new season.

The combo's concert, Jazz You Up With Jeremy Monteiro, was on at the SCO Concert Hall Friday and Saturday night. We were very lucky to obtain tickets for Saturday nights performance. If you are interested in their programs for the season, click HERE.

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) is Singapore’s only professional Chinese orchestra and click here for Music Director’s (Tsung Yeh) Message for 2010-2011.

As the flagship of local performing arts groups, the SCO has the patronage of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. It is located at the Singapore Conference Hall since 2001 after the revamp of the building. Under the baton of music director Tsung Yeh, the 70-strong orchestra aspires to introduce Chinese orchestral music to an ever-broadening audience.

With its aim of becoming a people’s orchestra, SCO has reached out through its Community Series concerts at the heartlands, Arts Education Programmes at schools and Outdoor Concerts at National Parks. In 2004, it launched its Caring and MusiCARE Series to bring Chinese orchestral music to the less privileged.

To develop Singaporean talents, the Orchestra began its Arranger-In-Residence and Conducting Assistant programmes in 2003. The former is to recognise the efforts of its local musicians who have actively been rearranging a number of works for the Orchestra, while the latter is a conducting mentorship for prospective local musicians. It has also set up a youth wing orchestra, the Singapore Youth Chinese Orchestra in 2003 to nurture young music talents into professional musicians.

There are no brass instruments in this orchestra, but the variety of Chinese Musical Instruments is astounding.

The SCO proudly owns one of the above Camac Atlantide Prestige Harps.

The above instrument is one of the best models of Erhus to come from Shanghai. The instrument is made of aged Rosewood, the second most sought after wood for making Erhus, after Violet Sandalwood. It produces a sweet and warm tone.  A beautiful instrument to listen to indeed.


We had another fabulous night out on Saturday night attending the concert, I have been to about five of their concerts now and have enjoyed each one. Sometimes they play on a Sunday evening at The Singapore Botanical Gardens and that is a really special event that is worth attending.

...... and of course we 'glammed' up for the Opening Gala Concert of the season!

 that was Saturday night in Singapore and so the rest of this long weekend continues with more events to follow in the next blog postings.

Click HERE to read the blog posting for the Friday Evening event in Batam.