There is something quietly profound about the way Francis Tan frames the concert he has spent months preparing.
As resident conductor of NUS Wind Symphony, Francis has shaped the ensemble’s sound and direction for years, and for this programme, he began with a simple observation. “Everything we live with today is what has survived the past,” he says. “Beliefs, cultures, national stories, even personal identity, all of it has endured change.”
It is the kind of observation that sounds simple until you sit with it.
For Francis, that idea became the lens through which an entire programme was built. In Search of What Remains is not about loss, he is careful to point out.
“It is not about searching because something is missing, but because something has remained and we are trying to understand it more clearly.”
The programme takes the form of six short stories, each one asking the same question from a different place.
Singaporean composer Benjamin Yeo steps up to conduct three of his own works: City of Dreams, a three-movement symphonic suite that traces Singapore’s band history from its earliest days to the present; At the Break of Gondwana, which considers nature across vast change and what humans do with what is left behind; and Takeda Lullaby, a lyrical setting of a Japanese folk cradle song once sung by a young girl to comfort herself through hardship.
Yasuhide Ito’s Gloriosa looks at faith under pressure, the story of Japan’s Kakure-Kirishitan, who kept their beliefs alive in secret for generations, disguising sacred melodies so deeply that even the word “Gloriosa” became unrecognisable.
Lee Jin Jun takes the podium to lead his own world premiere, A Day in the Life of Merlion, which reflects on nation-building and cultural memory.
And a dark reimagining of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody closes the evening by turning inward, asking what an individual holds onto when everything else is lost. The works span continents and centuries, but Francis sees them as inseparable. “Together, they form a single thread rather than separate items.”
That thread has shaped not just what the ensemble plays, but how they rehearse. “The focus is not only on accuracy, but on what each moment is holding onto. What has survived within the music, and how we bring that across to the audience.” It is a subtler, more patient kind of preparation, one that asks musicians to listen for meaning, not just notes.
Among the six works, one carries a particular intimacy.
A Day in the Life of Merlion was commissioned with a deceptively modest brief: “to write a piece that young people would enjoy playing.” The result is music that is, in Francis’s words, “accessible, practical for student ensembles, and engaging without being simplistic,” grounded in a setting that many Singaporean students know instinctively.
After the concert, the sheet music will be made available to other wind bands, and Francis sees that as where the piece truly begins. “As other bands take it up, the piece will be interpreted in different ways and placed in new programmes. That is how it continues to develop after the premiere.”
Presented as part of the NUS Arts Festival, the evening is conceived as something closer to an experience than a concert.
“Almost like a documentary told through music, with each work functioning as a chapter.” But Francis is not interested in the audience watching from a safe distance. “The aim is for audiences to place themselves inside the stories rather than observe from a distance. A community holding onto belief, a world changing, a society shaping memory, and an individual holding onto identity.”
What he hopes survives the evening is harder to name than applause. “A shift in awareness. Not necessarily answers, but a clearer sense that what we live with today has survived something.”
And then, almost as an afterthought, though it feels like the heart of everything, he adds: “Searching, reflecting, asking these questions, it is not a sign of being lost. It shows that we care enough to look more closely.”
NUS Wind Symphony: In Search of What Remains
Saturday, 28 March 2026
NUS University Cultural Centre Ho Bee Auditorium, 7pm