Arts Management in Multicultural Singapore

Renee Lee, the editor of Art Hats in Renaissance City, has been involved in the education of arts management studies for almost two decades. She became the first Director of Studies of Arts Management in Singapore to collaborate with universities to pioneer creative industries studies from their Creative Arts School and Business and Law School. As course leader and deputy head, she led the degree courses of Huddersfield University and Essex University from 2005 to 2015.

She held senior positions as director of studies and vice president in academic and corporate worlds. Her business projects include Resorts World Sentosa, Cartier, Stamfordland and Les Decoritifs Museum.

She holds a master of science degree from Stirling University, UK, and postgraduate qualifications in higher education and teaching from Sheffield University and Nanyang Technological University. Her education was in Fine Art & Design, Film & Media, Management, and pedagogies. She is a Ministry of Education certified instructor, and MOE-endorsed full-time lecturer at the Singapore Polytechnic, LASALLE and NAFA.

Liew Chin Choy has, for almost four decades, been involved in the promotion of art and culture in Singapore—first in the Ministry of Culture, followed by the National Arts Council where he became the first post-independence national festivals director masterminding the planning and organising of programmes in the performing, visual and literary arts; these included the Shell Drama Festival, National Dance Festival, Traditional Theatre Festival, Young People’s Theatre Festival, Playwriting Competition and National Short Story Writing Competition.

Liew belongs to the pioneer group of art administrators at a time when Singapore was derisively labelled a “cultural desert”. Liew programmed the Singapore Festival of Arts from 1990 to 1999 concurrently with the Festival of Asian Performing Arts, before the two festivals merged in 1999. He joined Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts as its vice president from 2004 to 2012. He was, for a short period from 2012 to 2014, head of Ossia Music School, a commercial music training school.

For his contribution to the art and culture of Singapore, Liew was conferred the National Day Award with a Public Administration Medal (Bronze) in 1999, and in 2014 the title of “Kala Poshaka Mani”, or Patron of the Arts, by Apsaras Arts, a leading Singapore Indian arts group with charity status where he still serves on its Board of Directors. He remains an adviser to Theatre Arts of Singapore known for its promotion of Beijing Opera and Chinese traditional music.