First aired on 8 August 2020 as part of our HistoriaSG lecture series
Bernard Tan
Emeritus Professor of Physics, National University of Singapore
Moderated by Eugene Dairianathan, Associate Professor, National Institute of Education, NTU

This lecture was presented as a livestream as part of the museum's National Day Celebrations in 2020.

Have you ever wondered about the origin of the National Day songs sung at the National Day Parade each year, or catchy community tunes like “Singapore Town” or “Chan Mali Chan”? Many of the national songs we know and love today were especially commissioned and compiled in the 1980s for Singaporeans to sing together at communal and national events. Join us for this special edition of HistoriaSG with our speaker Professor Bernard Tan and moderator Eugene Dairianathan. Professor Bernard Tan, who sat on the early Sing Singapore committee, will share more about the challenges of creating and promoting original national music in the years after Singapore’s independence, as well as the development of National Day songs over the years.

Image: Sing Singapore song book, 1988. Collection of the National Museum of Singapore, National Heritage Board