Amateur performers, here is your chance to shine

If you are an amateur who can play a musical instrument, sing or rap, here is your chance to perform in a grand show at the National Stadium in front of up to 45,000 spectators.

Sing50, the mega concert held on Aug 7 next year in conjunction with SG50 celebrations, is looking for budding and undiscovered talents to perform together with the professionals.

The hunt is now on for 1,000 choir singers, 100 rappers, and 50 pianists and 40 musicians to be part of the 120-strong Metropolitan Festival Orchestra.

Sing50 is presented by The Straits Times and The Business Times and produced by non-profit arts and culture organisation The Rice Company.

Sing50 creative director Jeremiah Choy tells Life! that the show is looking for people who are "committed and passionate".

He adds: "The objective of this is to be as inclusive as possible for Sing50 and let the public participate in this mega-concert at the National Stadium."

While the pianists, who will be playing on 50 Steinway grand pianos, need to have a minimum of ABRSM grade five, the other musicians, singers and rappers do not require prior experience or paper qualifications, although the ability to sight-read is an advantage for singers.

The Metropolitan Festival Orchestra is looking for musicians who play string instruments such as the violin, viola, cello, double bass, and wind instruments such as the oboe, flute, trumpet and horns.

The orchestra's general manager Low Jia Hua says that they will select amateurs who "have a certain competency with their instruments but who never had a chance to perform alongside a professional orchestra".

He adds: "They must have a command of their instruments, a sense of musicality and the ability to use their instruments to communicate with the people around them because they will be playing within an orchestra and with other musicians as well."

Musicians playing with the orchestra will also undergo a mentorship programme with the orchestra's professional players.

Interested applicants will have to upload videos of themselves performing to the Sing50 website (www.sing50concert.sg) and shortlisted talents will be called in for live auditions.

The judging panel will include experienced music industry professionals such as Choy; the orchestra's music director Professor Chan Tze Law, who will also be the concert's orchestra conductor; Francis Liew, the concert's mass choir conductor; Zaini Tahir, the show choreographer; and Gregory Chen, the concert's vocal coach.

For the talents who pass the auditions, rehearsals are expected to start in April and will intensify towards the end of July and the first week of August.

While Sing50's line-up of big-name local singers and musicians is still kept under wraps, the concert will feature prominent local artists performing 50 songs of various genres that have been popular or had an impact here between the 1960s and the present, sung in the four official languages.

The songs will be selected by the organising committee, which is co-chaired by The Straits Times deputy editor Alan John and The Business Times editor Alvin Tay and made up of music industry professionals as well as focus groups.

The public will also have a chance to vote on the repertoire. The show counts corporations Mapletree as presenting sponsor, Resorts World Sentosa as supporting presenter and Zurich insurance company as supporter.

Tickets will cost $10 or $20 each and will be available through Sports Hub Tix at a later date.

dinohadi@sph.com.sg

For details on the auditions, go to www.sing50concert.sg

This article was first published on November 28, 2014.
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