Modern Music in Singapore

Music Festivals

Singapore Sun Festival

The Singapore Sun Festival is a music and lifestyle festival that take place annually in Singapore. Singapore Sun Festival first take place on 2007, and Singapore is the only Asian city to host a Sun Festival.

The Sun Festival itself was founded by Barrett Wissman, cellist Nina Kotova and writer Frances Mayes. The festival first took place in Cortona, Tuscany, in 2003.

The Singapore Sun Festival has seven aspects, namely music, visual arts, wine cuisine, film, literature and wellness. The festival runs for 10 days, taking place on multiple venues across Singapore. During the ten days, around 250 international, regional, or local artists perform and interact with the public at historical and symbolic places in Singapore.

Over the past three years, the festival has featured approximately 700 artists, including Academy Award winning Geoffrey Rush, Grammy Award winning artists Al Jarreau and Sergio Mendes, Vienna Boys Choir and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra.

Since 2009, the Singapore Sun Festival has been established as the leading entertainment event for Singapore and South-East Asian region. The festival has also won "Leisure Event of the Year" award, which is awarded by Singapore Tourism Board in 2009.

Mosaic Music Festival

Mosaic Music Festival is a music festival in Singapore launched by the Esplanade in 2005.This festival runs for 10 days, featuring over 100 performances, most of them free. Since it was started, the Mosaic festival has become an anticipated music event in the region.

In its first year, Mosaic features mainly Jazz musician, but the festival has since expanded to include other genres such as folk, rock and R&B. Headline artists includes singer-songwriter Rachael Yamagata, jazz band Duke Ellington Orchestra and blues group Buddy Guy.

The aim of the Mosaic Music Festival is to provide a platform for interaction for Singapore and international artists, so that they can perform together.

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

A full-time professional orchestra with 96 members, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra now makes its performing home at the Esplanade Concert Hall, and also performs regularly at the Victoria Concert Hall and at other venues.

Performing over 50 symphonic programmes a year, its versatile repertoire spans the all-time favourites and orchestral masterpieces to exciting cutting-edge premieres. In support of Singaporean talent, local musicians and composers feature prominently in the concert season. Since its inception in 1979, the SSO has toured America, China, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, Japan, France, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

Singapore Idol

The Sinapore Idol is a interactive reality game show produced by MediaCorp studios. It is a competition among undiscovered talented singers across Singapore. The show is modelled very similar to other Idol shows such as Pop Idol.

Singapore Idol has had 3 seasons so far, the first in 2004, then in 2006 and the third in 2009. The winner of the first season was Taufik Batisah. The second Singapore Idol is Hady Mirza, who also won Asian Idol in 2007, and the third Singapore Idol is Sezairi Sezali