More Than 50 Students Win Awards at Annual Xinyao Singing and Songwriting Competition

More than 50 students clinched a total of 33 awards at the grand finals of this year's "Xin Kong Xia" (新空下) National Schools Xinyao Singing and Songwriting Competition. Winners received their awards from Minister of State for Education and Chairperson of the Committee to Promote Chinese Language Learning (CPCLL) Ms Gan Siow Huang, who was Guest of Honour at the event. Please see Annex for full list of finalists and winners.

2. At the event, home-grown singer Joanna Dong performed her rendition of Mandarin song 《恋之憩》, followed by a live performance of competition theme song《新空下》by MOS Gan and the student finalists in the solo singing category.

3. In a first for the annual competition, schools could form student-teacher ensembles to compete in the group singing category. Nan Chiau High School and Deyi Secondary School qualified as finalists at the grand finals with their student-teacher teams. In addition, the popular Lyrics Writing category received over 60 submissions for this year's competition, which is double that of last year's entries. Lyricists and students from Anderson Serangoon Junior College, Deng Weixi and Su Li Xin, penned the winning entry under this year's theme "Imagining the Future" 《畅想未来》, which was performed live during the grand finals.

4. Now in its 5th year, the annual singing and songwriting competition is jointly organised by the CPCLL, Lianhe Zaobao, TCR Music Station and Jurong Pioneer Junior College. The event aims to nurture interest in Chinese language and culture through Xinyao, Singapore's unique genre of Mandarin songs.

5. For more information, please visit CPCLL website at cpcll.sg or SPH's website at xinyao.zaobao.com.