Mr Wong Kah Chun, an alumnus of the NUS Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music and the first Singaporean Chief Conductor of Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, will showcase Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in a free concert at the Singapore Botanic Gardens on 15 September 2018. Five key members from the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra will partner YST Conservatory students at this concert. 

Mr Drew Thompson, Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS, opined that the US and Taiwan must work together, be more effective and more innovative if they hope to effectively compete with China and prevent China from further expanding its influence into the Western Hemisphere and Pacific Islands.

Asst Prof Vinodkumar Saranathan from Yale-NUS College, led a team of researchers from the College and the University of Fribourg, to discover a novel colour-generation mechanism in the rainbow-coloured patterns in the wing casings of a snout weevil from the Philippines. The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Small.

Muhammad Suhail B Mohamed Yazid, a Masters student in the Department of Malay Studies at NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences noted that celebrating 200 years of the “founding” of Singapore by Sir Stamford Raffles in 2019 might provide the opportunity for society to contemplate on how to move forward.

Mr Christopher Gee, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS discussed owners’ expectations of a windfall in en bloc activities and noted that we cannot, and should not, expect windfall gains arising from the sale of public housing flats under the voluntary early redevelopment scheme.

In his recently published memoir titled Home is Not Here, Prof Wang Gungwu, former Chairman of the East Asian Institute at NUS shared that he had once felt at odds with his identity in the years of his childhood and adolescence straddling Indonesia, Malaysia and China. NUS Press will launch the book in October 2018.

Assoc Prof Sing Tien Foo, Director from the Institute of Real Estate Studies at NUS and Ms Amanda Tang from Cornell University noted that the housing announcements at the National Day Rally chart out a path and give the Government leeway to plan for and redevelop new housing estates in Singapore. This is in anticipation that some public housing leases will run out at the same time and home owners will need time to think about whether to say yes to the Voluntary Early Redevelopment Scheme.

Assoc Prof Lee Yih Hwai, Head of the Dept of Marketing at NUS Business School shared findings of a study which he co-authored with colleagues at the Norwegian School of Economics and the Stockholm School of Economics. He highlighted that positive attitudes towards a hypothetical new, yet-to-be launched iPhone generated by an early announcement may strengthen our preference towards existing Apple products as consumers, because we are reminded of their similarities as components of a cool, desirable Apple ecosystem.

NUS Chairman Mr Hsieh Fu Hua opined that having done well in basic care, we should now advance our care to a dignified one with broader inclusion, reflective of Singapore’s progress. Having achieved considerable material success, we must strive to become a more engaged and caring society, one where we are there for one another at one’s beginning and end.

Themed If We Dream, the NUS Arts Festival 2018 commemorates the 25th anniversary of NUS Centre for the Arts and brings together student artists, faculty members and industry professionals in an eclectic mix of compelling performances, immersive experiences and profound conversations that envision the potency, and sometimes the perils, of dreaming.