Asia-Pacific
2014-12-01 / .

Singaporeans record a new National Day song in Tamil

Singapore: A new National Day song in Tamil, Singapore's fourth official language, has been launched for celebrating the country's 50 years of independence next year. The song and music composition project leader, Logapreyan Renganathan, 42, said he came up with the song idea because he wanted to create something new and fresh to celebrate "SG50", the abbreviation of multi-racial Singapore's 50 years of independence. "Song and dance are part of our Indian culture, so why not leverage on something we're proud of," Renganathan was quoted as saying by the Sunday Times.

It took a five-membered team six months to write the song and produce the music video that brings together 19 young performers and involves musical instruments such as a drum set, a lion dance (Chinese) drum, table and kompang (a Malay drum). "Many National Day songs are written by stars and for stars. I wanted to have a song written for the people by the people," said Renganathan, whose team received 50,000 Singapore dollar grant from the SG50 Celebration Fund for the project. Main composition of prosperous Singapore's over 5 million population are Chinese, Malays and Indians with Malay, Chinese, Tamil and English being the official language.

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