2. Beginning of the Nanyang Auditorium Concert Series

At that time  Mr Cham Tao Soon was the President of NTU.  Being also the Chairman of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO), he launched a community outreach programme and wanted to try it out at the Nanyang Auditorium.  This outreach concert was held I think in 2000.

At the first Symphony Orchestral concert, there was no special budget for this activity.  When the next outreach concert in NTU was planned due to popular demand, I was asked to donate to cover the internal publicity expenses.  As Dorothy before she passed away has also been MC of some music events, Mr Cham agreed to let this series of auditorium concerts be named after her in memory of her. I was of course very happy and played a part in suggesting improvements.

I got the idea for one notable improvement from many pop concerts.  This is to have video cameras to zoom onto individual musicians and their instruments. These video images are then projected onto the backdrop screen.  For us this'll help those in the audience new to these orchestral concerts identify the instruments and their sounds.

By now I notice many orchestral concerts on TV also have this practice.

At that time although Chinese orchestral playing has a much shorter history than Western classical orchestral playing, the former in Singapore and China are developing very fast.  After Mr Cham left NTU in 2002, I decided to invite the Singapore Chinese Orchestra to have their outreach playing in NTU.

It is true at first the quality of their instrument pieces and their sound are poor, but they are willing to innovate and gradually improve over the years.  

The Nanyang Auditorium  is big.  It has 1800 seats.  So far response from the NTU student and staff community has been good.  I continued the early practice of one-hour duration, no charge for entry, and free seating.  The only timing change is that instead of having it at lunch hours, I change it to a more popular time of 6 to 7 pm.

These two concerts used to alternate over the first and second semester which means twice per year. The amount of money I fund over each concert is not big as the supporting unit, the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) has waived all budget items that can be charged to the U.  This is why the U has considered my donation an perpetual one.   But the amount of administration and coordination work from the staff is very high.  This is why I have reduced the concert frequency to once a year.  

[to be continued, last updae 29/9/13]