The recent Spring Rhapsodies concert by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) was an evening full of spirit, a celebration of Singapore Chinese culture. Yet one item was especially interesting – a fresh rendition of the traditional Chinese New Year melody “It’s Spring Again” (大地回春).

Composed by a talented young artiste, Dayn Ng Chee Yao, it infused different Singapore ethnic rhythms and lilts – Singapore Malay, Indian and Chinese styles – into the melody. It was not just campur-campur (Malay for “just mixing”). He retained the original classic melody, with all its elegance, but gave it a multicultural, Singaporean flavour. Skilfully composed, and performed with great aplomb by the SCO.

We are at a stage of development, six decades on as an independent nation, where we must deepen our multiculturalism, and in so doing enrich our identity as Singaporeans.

It builds on the foundation of acceptance and respect for our diverse traditions and ways, that has enabled us to progress as a peaceful, multicultural society. And builds on our history and experience together as a people.

We must keep each of our diverse Singaporean cultures vibrant and refreshed. But importantly too, we can encourage greater criss-crossing among our different cultures, and greater collaboration and participation by Singaporeans in each other’s cultures.

The challenge is to achieve both these objectives, not achieve one at the expense of the other. We need not and should not sacrifice or dilute our respective cultures in order to deepen multiculturalism. If we do that, we will just be weakening the heartbeats of every community.

But neither should we live in separate cultural spheres in order to keep our distinctive cultures alive and strong. We must foster that criss-crossing of cultures, so each evolves while absorbing influences from others, the influences that come from our multicultural Singapore environment.

Let’s take a long view. Imagine the Singapore that we want, and the people we want to be, 10, 20, 30 years from now.

The deepening of multiculturalism will help us enhance the distinctive Singaporean character of each of our traditions – our Chinese, Malay, Indian and other traditions. It will also help develop greater cultural flexibility, especially among new generations of Singaporeans, more of whom will have to engage closely with the world around us. But most important, it will strengthen our social harmony, and enhance our sense of ourselves as Singaporeans, and in the decades to come.

We are in fact seeing very encouraging and creative efforts in this direction. SCO’s new rendition of “It’s Spring Again” was an example of one approach to developing our multiculturalism, and I believe it has a lot of promise: retaining our respective cultures, keeping them vibrant, but imbuing them with elements from other Singapore cultures.

There is a second approach which we are also seeing, which involves deeper collaboration among artistes from our different communities, to develop new whole compositions in music, dance and song. Not simply fusing everything into one, such that the original cultures are unrecognisable, but weaving a new cloth while retaining very visibly the different threads of our diverse traditions.

For example, the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre collaborated a few years ago with Bhaskar’s Arts Academy to present a new, reimagined version of the classic Chinese folk tale Butterfly Lovers. Choreographed by Meenakshy Bhaskar, it brought together Indian Bharatanatyam dancers and Cantonese opera artistes, accompanied by music composed by two leading artistes, one Indian and the other Chinese. But here too, it was not just campur-campur. You could see the threads of the different traditions, each with their own colour and authenticity, woven together skilfully and in a way that appeals.

We see this too in the creations that have come forth in response to the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre’s awards to encourage cross-cultural song compositions. The winning entry a few years ago was a Malay-Chinese song produced by Jamiel Said. He teamed up with Lim Wei Bin to compose a song that reflected the influences of P. Ramlee and Teresa Teng. They called it “Ku Mahu Zaihu” (Ku Mahu 在乎), a combination of Malay and Chinese words meaning “I want to care”. Again, skilfully composed, and yes, you can feel echoes of P. Ramlee and Teresa Teng in the song.

But there is also a third approach, which in my view deserves more emphasis. We must cross into each other’s cultures, whether in music, dance or art, even as we retain our different traditions. More Singaporeans can learn the intricacies of each other’s cultures, and seek to practise them. And for some, even develop flair and virtuosity when they cross into another Singapore culture.

A good example is Tan Qing Lun, now in his late 30s. He had already mastered the dizi, the Chinese flute, when he was taught to play the venu, the Indian flute, by Ghanavenothan Retnam, a leading Indian flautist. Qing Lun went on to master the venu, becoming the highest-placed flautist in the National Indian Music Competition a decade ago. He and Ghanavenothan have often performed together, with both playing classic Chinese and Indian tunes. Watching them is a joy.

We must make it possible and natural for our younger generation to do more of this crossing into other cultures. Not diluting our cultures, but making the effort to learn each other’s cultures respectfully, and develop some proficiency in them. Our school CCAs are fertile ground for achieving this.

There must be space for all these three approaches to deepening of multiculturalism, and many experiments. We cannot force the evolution of our multiculturalism. Culture has to evolve organically. But we can encourage efforts to infuse elements of each culture into the other, and make it natural for our young, and even for that matter, people of all ages, to cross into each other’s cultures, and feel enriched in doing so.

We must admit that appreciation of each of our different cultures, among other communities, is still quite superficial and weak. In the old days, we had Aneka Ragam Ra’ayat. Those of you who are old enough will remember – people went to different community gathering points to watch multiracial performances. In fact, the launch in 1959 by Mr Lee Kuan Yew, at the Botanic Gardens, was attended by some 22,000 people. Even a show in a village, like in Bukit Panjang, would attract 7,000 people, as people travelled from nearby villages to watch it.

But that was in the days before television. People flocked to these Aneka Ragam Ra’ayat performances for entertainment, but also learnt a little about each other’s cultures.

We can’t go back to those old days. But we can find new ways to now deepen our multiculturalism, encourage more collaboration between artistes of our different cultures, and more individuals and groups to cross into each other’s cultures.

After all, if we think about it, Singaporeans take very easily to Western culture. Some spend years training in Western music or dance, classical or pop, and many more take a close interest in it. There’s nothing wrong with this. It shows our cultural openness, and we are developing talents of our own.

But if we can do this so readily with Western culture, we can surely take a stronger interest in our own Singaporean cultures, strengthening the criss-crossing among cultures, and deepening our national identity as we do so. I am sure we can.

It will be a continuous journey. But there’s no journey more worthwhile than strengthening the Singapore heartbeat.

• This is an edited transcript of a speech by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam on Feb 12 at the Spring Reception 2024, organised by the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre and Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations.