By The Way – Seeing Stars at The Singapore Sun Festival

What happens when the children’s year-end exams are over and you can get a respite from helping them with schoolwork at night? The Sun Festival of course!

Back for the fourth year, the Singapore Sun Festival is rolling out star-studded excitement from 29 October to 7 November. If you don’t already know, it’s a series of events and performances covering seven areas – music, visual arts, film, literature, wine, cuisine and wellness. But from the looks of this year’s line-up, the emphasis seems to be on music.

I’ve already bought tickets for the opening act and main draw of the festival, ‘HITMAN – David Foster and Friends’ and dragging my mother, kid and hubby along as a treat! Multi-Grammy award winning musician, producer and composer David Foster (top) will be performing for two nights (29 - 30 Oct) with Natalie Cole (above), young singing and ‘botox-me!’ sensation Charice, American Idol winner Ruben Studdard, Peter Cetera and The Canadian Tenors. (We saw a sneak peek performance by Foster and Charice via a live online feed during the press conference, and it’s superb! Foster also waved a little Singapore flag on his piano which was real cute for us in the audience, and which makes us sooo believe him when he said he was excited to come to Singapore – and not for the first time either!)

Other performances include Natalie Cole’s greatest hits concert (31 Oct) where she performs duets with her father projected on a screen, jazz great George Benson (above, 4 Nov - I wanna go!) and The Creole Choir of Cuba (below, 5 Nov), an acclaimed vocal and percussion ensemble.

World renowned tenor José Carreras will be performing in an Italian gala performance (2 Nov) with the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Orchestra and soloists from the Accademia Del Maggio Musical Fiorentino, conducted by Paolo Olmi; and the Singapore Chinese Orchestra will stage a an East meets West Gala Closing Concert Silk Road Odyssey (6 Nov) with rising stars – guanzi soloist Han Le, violin soloist Rachel Lee, pipa soloist Yu Jia (above) and guitar soloist Miloš Karadaglic.

(José Carreras)

(Miloš Karadaglic)

If that’s too uppity-uptight for you, pack your picnic mat and champagne, kick off your shoes and watch free screenings of classic films at Singapore Botanic Gardens or head down to the Esplanade Outdoor Theatre for two outdoor concerts by Tambuco and Indialucia – for free! Make sure you take a walk round the Marina Bay precinct during the festival evenings and see the light art installations – the First of its kind in Asia and promises to be a pretty sight.

And for literary buffs, meet two authors Li Cunxin (above), author of Mao’s Last Dancer, who will share his life story as depicted in his book of which a film has now been made and Tishani Doshi as she talks about her various poems, short stories and her first novel.

(Rachel Lee)

Sharon Stone (sorry, no pix)  fifties and fab, will also be in town for the Symphony of the Stars gala brunch at Fullerton Hotel to conduct a charity auction of luxury items to support Action for AIDS Singapore. The event will also feature Aussie celeb chef Kurtis Stone (right) who will also be conductint cooking classes and other events.

Singapore is The Sun Festival’s home in Asia, but it also takes place every year - I didn't know this... - in Tuscany, Italy and the Napa Valley, California too.

Tix: SISTIC at www.sistic.com.sg or Tel: 6348 5555. For those living outside Singapore, there are travel agents around the region which offer special packages including hotel accommodation and Festival tickets. Details on www.singaporesunfestival.com

-Ee Waun