Well, some personal info for those who must have it:
I am a composer / recording artist / singer / flautist / guitarist / poet / painter and I have released 7 solo albums to date.
DISCOGRAPHY: Face to Face 1985, Book of Dreams 1987, China Blue 1991, The Other Actor 1994, Nature Boy 1996, Travelling Under the Light of the Full Moon 1997/8, Tattoo 1999/2000
The 3 albums: "China Blue", "Nature Boy" and "Travelling Under the Light of the Full Moon" form a trilogy - a blend of Eastern and Western sounds, fusing a range of Chinese, Indonesian, Malay, Indian elements with a modern international sensibility. After all, I live in Singapore and things don’t come much more mixed than that! ("rojak" we say in Singapore!) English is my first language in that I use it most of the time but I am Chinese (Cantonese to be more precise) and I am comfortable in that dialect as well as Mandarin, and I am pretty good in Indonesian & Malay. I
I have done a lot of work with theatre and TV both in and out of Singapore, I have composed/created music for more than 30 plays and if you really want a list of most of them email me and for more about my musical philosophy, go to the Music link, for my C.V. click here.... and about the past 4 -6 years.. well, they've been choc a bloc full with working on scoring for orchestras, quartets etc for the Arts Festivals in Singapore and Hong Kong, just click here for the RECENT WORK and if you want to listen to selections from some of the CDs click here: Song Files.
I also paint, the backdrop to this page is a detail of one of my Chinese Ink paintings (titled "Little Window") and I think that the silence away from music is truly necessary - just like instrumental music away from songs with words is necessary.... Just like the company of animals away from people.... My father was the one who really encouraged my painterly interests, my first memory of younger days is the smell of linseed and turpentine and standing in front of canvases for hours on end or hunched over paper with pencil and charcoal in hand, sketching and painting my heart out. My first long trip was around the world, to and from Mexico city in 1968 where UNICEF held a child art festival in conjunction with the Olympics. We children painted in acrylics on huge aluminium sheets that were hung on cubes.. taller than I was... But my favourite medium of that period was still oils... oh the scent of linseed and turpentine on my fingers that could never be washed off!
That sweet smell soon gave way to the pungent bite of chlorine as the same father (also National swimming coach) dragged all his young children (including me, the youngest) down to training sessions twice a day at the swimming pool.... torture with a capital S! But I won't complain too much.... we all ended up National swimmers, winning a ton of medals & setting a lot of records both in Singapore and in the region, but more importantly, learning a lot about discipline and working for what you want. And we had bleached hair Long before it became trendy!
The long sessions in the pool must surely have contributed to my serious, moody, solitary nature and my love for song and melody. Few other friends can keep you company when face down in water for 4 hours a day, 6 days a week.
MOVIES:
I am a movie buff, I have countless favourites but some of the real all time ones are: 3 Colours Red, White & Blue, Cinema Paradiso, The Big Blue, The English Patient, Casino, Dog Day Afternoon, the Last Temptation of Christ, Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman, Life On A String, Raise the Red Lantern, Blade Runner, Doctor Zhivago, Alien (all 4+1!), Star Wars, Kumono Sujo (Kurosawa’s Macbeth), Kundun, High Heels, What Have I Done To Deserve This?..... the list is endless.... As you can tell my taste covers a wide gamut of different movie styles and genres, from Art films to horror (often B grade - ooops) and fantasy.... I just re-watched "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Elizabeth" and "All About My Mother"... there is much to be thankful for in this celluloid life!
What you’ll find on my BOOKSHELF:
Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy / Dosotoevsky’s the Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov / Sainte-Exupery’s the Little Prince/ Tolkien’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings / Garcia Marquez’s Autumn of the Patriach, Love in the Time of Cholera, Of Love and Other Demons / Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy /Amin Maalouf's The Gardens of Light, Leo the African / Journey to the West/ Dream of the Red Chamber / Kenzaburo Oe’s A Quiet Life / Kazantzakis’s Zorba the Greek/ Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter, the English Patient / Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass / Edward Said's Orientalism / Letters to a Young Poet and Poetry by Maria Rainer Rilke / Garcia Lorca's poetry - newly rediscovered by me (wow!!!)/Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu), Zhuang Tze, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Zen Patriarch (Hui Neng)..... and YES YES yes, The Da Vinci Code sits next to Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose on that bookshelf!
forward to Writings, Music, Song Files or Quotes/Reviews
ME