Best cultural events to rouse your Singapore spirit

Cinema

A Feeling Of Music Playing

FILM-MAKER Ong Kah Jing – better known as OKJ – has produced a fascinating independent documentary centred on a jamming session involving four players of Asian instruments: Govin Tan (tabla), Mohamed Faizal (guzheng), Gildon Choo (pipa) and Tong Wei Jie (dizi). Tan is Chinese but plays the Indian tabla because his father converted to Hinduism in the 1980s and passed on his love of Indian music; Faizal is Malay but plays the guzheng because he’s loved the sound of the instrument since he was 14. It’s a multiracial, cross-cultural Asian fantasy that can exist only in Singapore – except that it’s real.   

The film, titled A Feeling of Music Playing, offers an intimate look at how musicians collaborate and create harmonies together. The four are either complete strangers to each other or have never played together. The film chronicles the session taking place within the Eng Tiang Huat Chinese Cultural Shop, as they strike their first improvised chords, and gradually work towards a glorious climactic musical synchronicity. As cliched as it sounds, music really does bring people together, and A Feeling of Music Playing rouses nationalistic pride as well as any government-funded film on Singapore. The film plays at GV Max at Golden Village VivoCity on Aug 7 at 9 pm.