‘Another chapter’: Singaporean Chinese music groups take multicultural shows to China

SINGAPORE – Taking the Fujian-origin chamber music of Nanyin to China might sound like the cliche of selling ice to the Eskimos, but Singapore ensemble Siong Leng Musical Association’s multicultural twist on the southern Chinese musical form has long attracted curiosity from Chinese academics and musicians.

Siong Leng will, for the first time, perform in Chinese cities outside of Nanyin’s birthplace of Quanzhou, where the group has performed before. Together with Indian musicians and a dancer, it plays four shows of Tempest & Tranquility at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center on Sept 19 and 20 and three shows at the Dahua City Performing Arts Center in Beijing on Sept 25 and 26.

Siong Leng principal artist Seow Ming Xian, who plays the Nanyin dongxiao (bamboo flute) and is also assistant producer of the show, says: “When people look at multiculturalism, they expect just people of different ethnicities and cultures coming together and playing a song together.”

But multiculturalism can look very different, “harmony does not require us to do the same thing. It begins when we learn how to listen and make space for one another”.

Siong Leng’s musical journey north is part of a small wave of Singapore-based Chinese ensembles taking multicultural Chinese music to China in 2026. It also comes at a time when multicultural arts are receiving a renewed push with the launch of the $20 million Multicultural Arts Programme Grant.

Separately, Singapore Chinese fusion music group The Teng Ensemble is collaborating with Hong Kong Dance Company on Voyage Of The Eight Graces, a dance and music work inspired by traditional activities such as poetry and calligraphy but infused with the modern genres of grunge and hip-hop. It plays at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts from Oct 8 to 10 and at the Bay Opera of Shenzhen on Oct 16 and 17.

In Siong Leng’s Tempest & Tranquility, composer Ng Kang Kee juxtaposes Nanyin – known for its soothing and calm cadences with vocals from the Minnan dialect – with rhythmic grooves from Indian musicians on the tabla and veena, for example, and dance from bharatanatyam artist Swarna Varsha Gurumoorthy. Says Seow: “Rather than trying to find the common ground, we just went ahead with these two unique sets of characteristics and showcased that contrast.”

Because Nanyin is a UNESCO-inscribed intangible cultural heritage in China, Seow says musicians in Quanzhou have less room to experiment and thus stick to traditional repertoire. Whereas in Singapore, Siong Leng’s late chairman Teng Mah Seng and his proteges pushed to give the traditional form a contemporary sound, something Seow is confident Chinese audiences will find refreshing.

Seow says: “We are not going to showcase what Nanyin is, but rather, showcase how it has already flourished and taken root here.”

Siong Leng’s performance of Tempest & Tranquility is part of the concert Harmonic Echoes, which features in the second half a performance by multi-ethnic ensemble Artusik, which blends traditional Malay, Chinese and Western elements. The event is part of the inaugural Singapore Cultural Festival organised by Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao.

Lee Huay Leng, editor-in-chief of Chinese Media Group, SPH Media, says Singapore’s Chinese culture has been rooted in tradition while embracing multiculturalism, adding: “We have long held that cultural exchange cannot be confined to the printed page or the digital screen; it must be lived and felt through face-to-face engagement. Presenting the Singapore Cultural Festival in China marks a new endeavour for Lianhe Zaobao, through which we hope to deepen mutual understanding between the communities of Singapore and China, not only through words, but also through direct, shared interaction.”

Supported by the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, the festival also features film screenings by Singaporean film-makers and a culinary heritage showcase, amid other offerings meant to deepen mutual understanding between Singapore and China.

When The Teng Ensemble shared its music – inspired by Chinese qupai (fixed melody) – with the Hong Kong dancers, they were slightly stumped. Says Samuel Wong, co-founder and creative director of arts group The Teng Company: “They were like, ‘What do we do with this?’ It doesn’t really sound very much like Chinese music any more, but that is the magic of what we do, right? As a Singaporean arts company, we are influenced by the world.”

Wong had, in 2024, pitched the idea of a collaboration with Hong Kong Dance Company, seeing that shared histories as port cities and former British colonies would make the collaboration fruitful. What emerged were the differences in how they approach fusion: “Our form of hybridisation of cultures is a little bit different in the sense that Singapore, located in South-east Asia, has Malay and Indian influences.”

Says Wong, who last led the ensemble to perform in Hong Kong in 2016: “Fusion comes very naturally to us in many aspects of our lives in Singapore, whereas in Hong Kong, there’s a conscious attempt to fuse.”

The company is taking the electric guitar, synthesisers, cello and Chinese instruments such as the pipa, guzheng, sheng and erhu to the show. He thinks audiences in Shenzhen will also appreciate a different approach to Chinese instruments: “We don’t think about modernising Chinese instruments because we think they are modern enough.”