What inspired you to write your piece? What do you hope to convey in the music?

Diana: My piece is an authentic conveyance of thoughts and emotions that I personally experienced through nostalgia while living abroad. It deals with the transformative effects of travels and immigration and conveys the message that our “Singaporean-ness” is very much an integral part of us, in spite of where our travels might take us or where we might live. Through the text – a short two-part poem that speaks about absence, longing and the desire to communicate experiences between two personae (one who had travelled and one who is home) – I hope to capture the idea that it is our conscious and continuous effort to connect with each other that ultimately fuels our sense of belonging and identity.

I wanted the piece to be organic, to have room for further dissimilation and creation, so I created spaces where artists can decide their own articulation and dynamics, and open-ended segments that allow choirs to create and introduce their own musical settings. For me, this structure allows for communication between composer and artists, and more importantly between the different representations of the same piece. I expect that choirs will use this space to conjure diverse and colourful images that pertain to an experienced, foreign or imagined reality! A huge regret is that I will not be present hear the live accounts of each participating choir!

Kok Jun: I conceptualised my piece with the Singapore Bicentennial in mind. While it celebrates Singapore in the present, it also pays important tribute to a history beyond 1965, from which the stories of our forefathers carry into the present via the river passageway.

Jinjun: My inspiration behind this work is a desire to merge Singapore’s rich historical past with my vision of Singapore’s future. Integral to the piece are avenues where band members and instructors can collectively make structural and orchestration decisions, and each group can thus have the freedom to articulate their own identity. For me, rather than promoting a spirit of competitiveness, this experience will facilitate different interpretations from participants that are unified by a shared cultural experience, thus allowing opportunities for the different bands to collide together in a vibrant display of overlapping ideas and visions.