ChildAid 2022 opens on Tuesday at 7.30pm at the University Cultural Centre. If you did not manage to get tickets to the show, you can watch its live stream on The Straits Times and The Business Times’ respective YouTube channels.
Organised by the two newspapers, the charity concert has been raising money for children from underprivileged homes for 18 years. Over the years, it has assisted more than 180,000 children.
This year’s edition – titled All Together Now – promises music from BTS, OneRepublic, Nicky Youre, Abba, Mozart, Pasek and Paul, Whitney Houston, Elton John and many more. Here are 10 things to look out for.
1. Youngest performer
Earlier this year, six-year-old Shalom Shyann-E Ng won first prize in Category 1 (ages 6 and below) in the Amateur Class of the 6th Steinway Youth Piano Competition.
She is set to charm audiences with a performance of William Gillock’s 1960 classic Fountain In The Rain, as seven young acrobatic dancers twist and turn artfully on stage.
2. Self-taught K-pop dancers
Students from Woodlands Ring Secondary School and Victoria Junior College learnt on their own the dance steps of their favourite K-pop idols.
They are now set to bust a move to the song I Ain’t Worried by OneRepublic, a breezy Billboard chart-topper infused with K-pop rhythm by ChildAid’s music director Evan Low.
3. Most unusual act
Lim Jing Rui is able to accurately whistle just about any tune, making him one of the most novel acts in the history of ChildAid.
The 13-year-old has challenged himself to whistle the tonally complex Queen Of The Night aria from Mozart’s 1791 opera The Magic Flute. Watch him deliver it in perfect pitch.
4. Abba rules
The older generations love Abba, but most of ChildAid 2022’s Gen Z performers had not heard of the Swedish legend until they had to perform it for the concert.
Now, eight singers aged between eight and 14 are set to perform an infectious medley of late-70s hits Take A Chance On Me and Mamma Mia, arranged by 16-year-old Sathya Nayar from School of the Arts.
5. Return of the 1980s
Gen X audiences will love some of the song selections for the concert. The kids will be remixing and singing Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams (1983), Elton John’s I’m Still Standing (1983), Michael Jackson’s Man In The Mirror (1988) and Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody (1987) – four of the most iconic hits of the era.
6. Most powerful voice
Angelic-voiced Raeanne Wong Chien Yin received some of the loudest applause in last year’s ChildAid concert for delivering a pitch-perfect rendition of Think Of Me from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 musical The Phantom Of The Opera.
She returns this year to sing Jackie Evancho’s equally challenging 2011 number To Believe, a song about finding hope amid despair, which she chose because of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
7. BTS babies
K-pop has never looked cuter: Emma Koh, Audrey Foo, and sisters Aika and Aili Addicks – all aged between eight and 11 – will take the stage to sing BTS’ 2020 mega hit Dynamite.
When asked why people should catch their performance, the girls quote the song’s lyrics: “We will bring the fire and set the night alight.”
8. Excellent live band
ChildAid 2022’s amazing live band are made up of well-regarded Singapore musicians, including guitarist Leonard Goh Jia Shing, bassist Timothy De Cotta, drummer Adam Noel Shah and keyboardist Joel Dunstan Chua. They are joined by young cellist Lucas Liow and violinist Esther Chiu.
9. Musical theatre tribute
Love Paul and Pasek? The duo behind the songs of hit musicals and movies such as Dear Evan Hansen (2015), La La Land (2016) and The Greatest Showman (2017) get a tribute of their own as 10 kids aged 10 to 14 belt out A Million Dreams, Speechless and Never Enough.
10. Dancing up a storm
No ChildAid concert is complete without the country’s best young dancers. This year, over two dozen dancers of the award-winning company Jitterbugs Swingapore will tear up the floor to the tune of Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody and BTS’ Black Swan (2020).
There are also 17 hip-hop dancers aged nine to 11 from Mini Groovers who will strut their stuff during ChildAid’s rap-infused rendition of Nicky Youre’s Sunroof.
- Helmi Yusof is the co-chair of ChildAid’s organising committee.
- ChildAid will be live-streamed on The Straits Times YouTube channel on Dec 13 at 7.30pm. Go to https://str.sg/wCEN
