Celebrating SOTA's artistic excellence and achievements

Ms Lim Geok Cheng, 
Principal, School of the Arts (SOTA)

Board Members of SOTA

Teachers and staff

Parents and students

Distinguished guests

1. Very good afternoon to all of you and it’s very good to be back here in SOTA. This is my third year coming for the student awards ceremony. It’s always a special event because coming here, it’s not just an award ceremony, it’s also like coming here for a very high quality concert. I’d like to start by acknowledging all our SOTA award winners here today. Congratulations and well done to all of you. Let’s give all of them a big round of applause.
   

2. I would also want to say a special thanks to your teachers, your parents and all those who provided you with steadfast encouragement, mentorship and support over these many years.

SOTA’s achievements

3. I’m very proud of what SOTA has achieved in a relatively short period of time – 7 years since it was formed in 2008.  In all aspects of a quality education – artistic excellence, academic achievement and social consciousness – SOTA has done exceedingly well.

4. The achievements are reflected not just in the statistics and academic achievements, but more importantly, in overall perceptions of the school.  Many people I meet speak highly of SOTA – they say this to me spontaneously, even without my raising it.  I know many parents with young children are very keen to have them pursue an education here – one that’s infused with the arts, and provides a much richer exposure and training in the arts than in a mainstream school. Indeed, if I was growing up again, I would easily have chosen an education in SOTA. Unfortunately at that time, there was no such thing as an arts school. But if I had the chance, I would have chosen to come here too.

5. The artistic accomplishments of SOTA’s students speak for themselves. For example, one of your alumni Koh Cheng Jin has become the first Singaporean to pursue music composition studies at Juilliard. At a young age, she has already written a full orchestra work, and this piece of music was recently selected and performed by the SSO.

6. Last year, I visited the UK and met my counterpart, the Secretary of State for Culture. We were discussing ways to strengthen cultural cooperation between our two countries. When we go for these events, we usually present a gift. Most times, the Ministries would select a souvenir and just present to the counterparts. But since we are the Ministry for Culture, we have to take great care to select a gift that is appropriate, that reflects Singapore’s culture. I usually present artworks by artists, and this time I asked SOTA if they could find me an art piece by one of their students. They found something that their student Ivan Tan provided. It’s a ceramic piece, very nice sculpture and I presented it to the Culture Minister from the UK. He was so taken by the gift that he wrote back to Ivan, thanking him personally for the artwork. And this piece that Ivan produced now sits in the office of the UK Department of Culture, alongside other masterpieces by well-known English artists like Bridget Riley and Rowland Hilder. So alongside English masters, there is an artwork by a SOTA student, and it shows the quality that SOTA is able to produce, and the potential that SOTA has.

7. Besides artistic excellence, I’m glad that SOTA students have shown the value of an arts education in encouraging empathy and concern for your fellow citizens.

8. Earlier in February, SOTA students held interactive activities like therapeutic art classes with elderly patients at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, to help ease their time in hospital. In the past, the students have similarly conducted ceramic workshops and classes for persons with special needs, as well as primary school students from less privileged backgrounds.

9. I encourage SOTA to continue in this direction to provide opportunities for the students to do community service projects, both during their time here and beyond.  When our students serve, and our young in Singapore serve, they meet people in different circumstances; they develop greater empathy and learn what it means to walk in the shoes of other people. This helps to build our community, and makes us a stronger and more cohesive community in Singapore. 

10. I’m also very proud that as a student body, SOTA have demonstrated hard work and determination, often in the face of daunting odds.

11. One example which struck me was that of Gillian Rubiyanto Chen En, a Year 5 Visual Arts student. In 2010, she was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. She had to stop school for a year to undergo chemotherapy. But she did not give up on her dreams.

12. I understand SOTA has provided her with support and encouragement, which has motivated her to push her boundaries in expressing herself through art. She has stayed optimistic, and treated her cancer as nothing more than a setback. Today, she will join us on stage as a recipient of the David Marshall Scholarship for Young Artist. I want to congratulate her on this tremendous achievement. Let’s give her a round of applause.

Partnerships

13. The school and its students would not have been able to produce such sterling results without the continual support of SOTA’s partners. Organisations and arts groups like the National Gallery Singapore, the Orchestra of Music Makers (OMM) and the Human Expression (T.H.E.) Dance Company have been staunch partners of SOTA.

14. These partnerships enhance the SOTA education by giving our students exposure to authentic environments beyond the school context, through internships, competitions and platforms to showcase their works.

15. SOTA has also benefitted from the support of corporate organisations like Ngee Ann Kongsi, Temasek Education Foundation and JP Morgan. They have contributed generously through scholarships and bursaries. Amongst the 2014 cohort, more than one in 10 SOTA graduates received some form of financial assistance. Through the assistance, the students have all done well in their IB Diploma.

16. With strong support from both the government and our partners, I want to assure all of you that a quality arts education at SOTA will always be accessible to every young Singaporean, regardless of background or family circumstances. From time to time, I hear feedback from people that they are concerned about the cost of pursuing an education at SOTA. With the assurance that we have, both the government and corporate partners that we are bringing on board, the assurance we want to give to Singaporeans is that as long as a young person has the aptitude and commitment to take this path here in SOTA, we will do whatever we can to provide him or her with the support to complete their education here. No one should be denied of a place in SOTA because they are unable to afford their education in SOTA.

Role of SOTA in culture and artistic identity

17. With these strong foundations, I’m confident that SOTA will continue to play an important role in nurturing our next generation of artists, creative professionals and arts advocates in Singapore.

18. All of you in SOTA are the artistic talents of your generation. All of you will play leading roles in contributing to Singapore’s cultural repertoire.  In doing so, I hope you will also think hard about how our Singaporean and Southeast Asian cultures and identities are reflected in the art you create here in Singapore. 

19. Many of you would be exposed to Western art forms and traditions in the course of your arts education. For example, if you are into classical music, you would be familiar with all the European composers; and if you are doing English literature or theatre, you would know all the classics from English literature. This is only natural since for more than a hundred years, the map of music and theatre-making has been dominated by the West. So to have good training in the arts, you need to have that foundation from Western canon. But to have a deeper and fuller appreciation of the arts, we also need to embrace a broader diversity of other cultural resources.

20. So what is it that sets you apart as an artist from Singapore? I think an important distinction must be that we are situated here in Southeast Asia, in multi-cultural Singapore, and so our art must reflect a sense of where we came from. 

21. There is plenty of inspiration to be found in our traditional culture and heritage. And this something SOTA students can make use of.

22. Let me give an example. This year’s SOTA-Ngee Ann Kongsi Outstanding Young Artist Award will be presented to Almira Bte Farid. Almira has used her affinity for music and her studies in anthropology to explore her cultural roots, applying traditional Indonesian and Malay elements in her music compositions. She has been accepted to study ethnomusicology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, at the University of London.

23. So I wish Almira all the best as she does her part to keep our traditions and cultural roots alive and relevant in the contemporary world.  And I hope her experience will inspire all of you to learn more about our roots, and discover for yourself, how our Singaporean and Southeast Asian identities can be better reflected in the artworks that you create.

Concluding remarks

24. Finally, let me conclude by thanking each and every one of you for playing your part in bringing SOTA this far: our eachers, staff, parents, partners – and of course, the entire student body.

25. Through the arts, we can express ourselves and develop a richer and more distinctive Singapore culture.  We can raise up iconic arts and heritage institutions that make us proud to be Singaporeans. And we can continue to nurture young talents in the arts, while providing the best possible environment for them to excel as artists, as lifelong learners, and as members of this community.

26. I am very excited about what we will achieve together in the years ahead, and I wish all SOTA graduates the very best in your future endeavours.