Jennifer Tham, Singapore

 

Jennifer has directed the Singapore Youth Choir (now the SYC Ensemble Singers) since 1986. In her hands, the SYC has earned several prizes and awards, as well as a reputation for being the composer’s choir, malleable to the demands of contemporary choral music.

Jennifer is also Artistic Director of the Young Musicians’ Society, the arts company responsible for the Asia South Pacific Symposium on Choral Music (2001) and its offshoots, the First Aid for Choirs and Conductors Workshop Series, and the Kodaly Seminar Asia for music pedagogues.

Jennifer has taught choral conducting at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, and given workshops and short courses to conductors at home, in Japan and in Indonesia. She has chaired and spoken on panels at conferences and symposia in Singapore, Argentina, Denmark, Estonia and Sweden; and was the principal lecturer at the 2008 Lithuanian Conductors Summer Academy, hosted by the Lithuanian Choral Union and the Ministry of Culture.  She has presented lectures and reading sessions on Singapore choral music at symposia in Croatia and USA, and conducted the Asia Pacific Youth Choir in a programme of contemporary music of this region at the 10th World Symposium on Choral Music (Seoul, Korea, 2014).  For the International Federation for Choral Music, she co-coordinates the Asia Pacific Working Committee; and also serves on the World Choir Council, representing Singapore.

In 2012, Jennifer was conferred the nation’s highest artistic accolade, the Cultural Medallion, by the President, Republic of Singapore.