Life

This year marked a new chapter in the history of the Singapore International Piano Festival, with local concert pianist Lim Yan making his debut as its artistic director. He is the first of four directors who is a professional musician. Chinese pianist Sa Chen, prize winner in multiple prestigious international piano competitions, was Lim’s opening-night […]

British pianist Ronan O’Hora has performed around the world and is a teacher and mentor to Lim Yan, who begins his tenure as artistic director of the Singapore International Piano Festival this year. O’Hora’s programme featured some of the best-known works of Beethoven and Brahms, woven together by common threads of passion, angst and unrequited […]

Fine-dining restaurant Jaan at Swissotel The Stamford has been renamed Jaan by Kirk Westaway, to further cement the British chef’s commitment to the restaurant he has helmed for the past four years. This comes one year after the 34-year-old launched his Reinventing British menu, which showcases his take on modern British dining and highlights ingredients […]

For the June holidays, children can explore the National Museum of Singapore using the museum’s first interactive guide for families. Titled Get Curious!, the guide was launched last Saturday, in conjunction with the museum’s month-long Children’s Special. It was co-developed over six months with early childhood educators from NTUC First Campus’ My First Skool, with […]

An animated film featuring Detective Conan – one of Japan’s well-beloved manga and anime series – will take place mainly in Singapore, the first time a film about the genius boy detective is set outside Japan. The plot of the 23rd feature film of the series, titled Detective Conan: The Fist Of Blue Sapphire, centres […]

When Ms Le Giang, 37, started a business selling Vietnamese street food in a kopitiam here nearly two years ago, she looked forward to being her own boss. The degree holder, who was previously a regional sales manager for a multinational firm, has since realised being her own boss is far from rosy. Please subscribe […]

In the current age, the focus of the medical community is more on preventing metabolic conditions such as diabetes mellitus and obesity, rather than chronic respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). As the saying goes: “Out of sight, out of mind.” Please subscribe or log in to continue reading the full article. […]

In the past, the average lifespan was only about 30 to 40 years and most people did not survive beyond their reproductive years. A percentage of both men and women did live to old age. How was this useful from an evolutionary point of view? Please subscribe or log in to continue reading the full […]

Given actress and singer Ashley Tisdale’s breakout role as the sassy, spunky antagonist Sharpay Evans in 2006’s High School Musical, it might come as a surprise that Tisdale has struggled with anxiety and depression in her career since. For her first album in a decade, she has gone personal, talking about her battle with mental […]

Any attempt to pin down Aldous Harding is a foolhardy venture, especially when the New Zealand-born songstress is not predisposed to self-explanation. Probed about the video for her recent single The Barrel – in which she moves oddly, dressed in a white ruff and topped with a tall, domed hat, and revealing a macabre blue […]

It seems such a pity that the German Romantic composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856) wrote such a small body of music for cello – a great cello concerto and a handful of short chamber works. This album of transcriptions by German virtuoso cellist Friedrich Grutzmacher (1832-1903) of Schumann’s Lieder, selected piano pieces and an entire sonata […]

The digital platform might have killed the music distribution business, but it has also helped niche genres and lost gems find a new audience. Dub Store Records, a Japanese label with a narrowly obsessive otaku focus on reggae and ska, has been reissuing oddball gems which stray occasionally into jazz territory. This latest compilation covers […]

APPLE MUSIC 1. (-) I Don’t Care – Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber 2. (1) Boy With Luv – BTS featuring Halsey 3. (2) Kill This Love – Blackpink 4. (3) If I Can’t Have You – Shawn Mendes 5. (4) Me! – Taylor Swift featuring Brendon Urie of Panic! At The Disco 6. (7) […]

In an age of celebrity oversharing, actor Keanu Reeves has somehow stayed one of the most private and enigmatic figures in Hollywood. The good guys he plays in action blockbusters such as Speed (1994), the Matrix movies (1999 to 2003) and the John Wick franchise (2014 to now) – which returns today for a third […]

REVIEW / DRAMA BIRTHDAY (PG) 120 minutes/Opens today/ 4 Stars The story: Jung-il (Sul Kyung-gu) returns home to South Korea after a number of years abroad. His wife Soon-nam (Jeon Do-yeon) has been looking after their young daughter Ye-sol (Kim Bo-min) on her own and does not want to see him. It is gradually revealed […]

REVIEW / ACTION JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 (M18) 131 minutes/Opens today/ 2.5 Stars The story: After the events of John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), in which he violated the code of the assassins’ guild by killing someone on the grounds of the Continental Hotel, Wick (Keanu Reeves) is on the run with a US$14-million bounty […]

Every week, new songs are released by young and rising names in the Singapore music scene, such as R&B/electronic singer Theodora, whose songs have racked up more than two million streams on Spotify. While traditionally, international record companies such as Universal, Sony and Warner have had a hand in putting out music by Singapore talent, […]

Has Canadian indie rock wag Mac DeMarco gone country? The title of his fourth full-length album certainly suggests so. The moniker, and the gentle, twangy strums that open the album, are just a decoy actually, a typical cheeky move from the singer-songwriter. Here Comes The Cowboy is more akin to a comedown, Sunday morning post-party […]

SINGAPORE – It took only seconds. We’d just finished breakfast of finger foods, carrots and pears, along with sweet potato puree. I was loading the dishwasher and singing The Wheels on the Bus, while my daughter Happy, then nine-months-old, swayed in a mechanical swing, clumsily clapping her chubby hands. Then came the shriek, followed by […]

Singaporean Christine Tan and Malaysian Chow Beatus have been sharing a two-bedroom apartment in Sarkies Road for the last five months, but they were strangers before moving in together. They are among a growing group of young working professionals here who rent a room in an apartment shared with other tenants, usually strangers, in an […]

Businessman Michael Mun, his wife and three sons have been living on this property for over two decades, during which the family grew in size, with the sons starting their own families. Mr Mun, 69, says: “Despite the size of the land, the old house had a built-up area of only about 6,000 sq ft […]

Resurrection Fern requires semi-shade to grow well What plant is this and how do I care for it? When the plant is dry, the leaves will curl up, so it looks like a ball on a stick (stem). Once the plant is watered, the leaves open up. Is this plant easy to care for and […]

Is there really no more free space in land-scarce Singapore? This is the question an upcoming exhibition at the National Design Centre seeks to answer. No More Free Space? highlights 12 projects through videos and images where architects, urban planners and place-makers have found creative ways to use the limited space in dense urban Singapore. […]

Singapore artists will continue to receive support to grow internationally, said Singapore’s Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Transport and Culture, Community and Youth Baey Yam Keng during the launch of the nation’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale on Thursday. Speaking at the 58th edition of the international art festival, he added: “We will continue to support […]

South Korean boy band A.C.E may have more than 470,000 followers on Instagram, but before they became K-pop idols, they were K-pop fans. The five-member group – comprising Jun, Byeongkwan, Donghun, Wow and Chan – first gained a following busking on the streets of the hip Hongdae district in Seoul, covering the dance choreography of […]

Tune in to Life Picks, a weekly podcast by The Straits Times, in which we highlight the best films, concerts, restaurants and arts events. This week, Melissa Sim hosts colleague Anjali Raguraman, who talks about snagging $12 cocktails at the Singapore Cocktail Festival, which ends tomorrow; and Eunice Quek, who chats about the exclusive dishes […]

Hong Kong cocktail bar The Old Man has nabbed the top spot on the annual Asia’s 50 Best Bars list, ousting Singapore bar Manhattan. Manhattan at the Regent Singapore, which held the No. 1 ranking for two years running, placed at No. 2, while Taipei’s Indulge Experimental Bistro was placed No. 3. The list was […]

SEOUL • The husband of South Korean TV actress Han Ji-seong, 28, who died on Monday, said he did not see her drinking that day. According to media channel TV report, he is a lawyer and he had told the police: “I had several drinks with peers at Yeongjongdo.” It is an island off the […]

REVIEW / COMEDY POKEMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU (PG) 105 minutes/Opens today/2.5 stars The story: In this first live-action movie adaptation of the Pokemon game and cartoon franchise, every person on Earth has a Pokemon companion. Tim (Justice Smith) has to discover why his father Harry is missing. In Ryme City, where Harry lives, humans and Pokemon […]

REVIEW / CRIME DRAMA KING OF THIEVES (NC16) 108 minutes/Now showing/2 stars The story: Brian Reader (Michael Caine) is a seasoned jailbird and burglar who, at age 77, wants to do one more big heist. His accomplices are all almost as old as he is, save for one. Their target: the vaults at London’s Hatton […]