Founder of the SIA Organisation, a performing arts organisation with many performing arts groups performing under the SIA name. All of our groups are all-male.
Executive Director of the Re:Sound Collective, Excelsior Winds, Antiphony and conNexus. Please check their descriptions for medals/finalists details
Founded in Season 12 as the SIA-Aidil high school marching group with the Aidil High School, the organisation grew to become a full fledged performing arts organisation with funding and support from the high school and local fanbase community. However, in Season 18, the organisation became independent and cut ties with the affiliated high school and had to go into administration the following season due to the lack of funds and manpower.
After countless fundraisers, opening a new bingo hall and a new partnership with the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, the organisation mustered up some courage and quietly fielded a drum corps for competition in Season 62 to test its capabilities, almost 50 seasons since it was last active. Most of its instructional staff and corps members came from the Academy who had no experience in drum corps but were very experienced in theatrical and orchestral programming. The experiment proved to be a success as the SIA Cadets went undefeated the whole season with their stunning reproduction of Stravinsky's famous ballet suite, "The Firebird", and were crowned Champions of Division III!
The promising results of the corps brought on a wave of optimism for the organisation, as the SIA Organisation announced that it'll be going all out competitive once again through the comeback of its marching band program, the SIA Knights, the reboot of its winter groups, SIA Stars and SIA Beats, and also the relaunch of it's feeder corps and band program, the SIA Scouts, the SIA Esquires. The Organisation also launched two new feeder indoor groups, the SIA Diamonds and the SIA Drums.
A similar story followed the next season when the SIA Cadets presented a macro-conceptual show called "The Young Person's Guide to Drum Corps", which was based off the Benjamin Britten classic. The show was a huge success, with the SIA Cadets crowned as champions again, this time in Division II. They've also set another previous high score back then of 93.520, even when they've just been promoted that season. This meant that the SIA Cadets have earned two consecutive promotions and titles in different divisions, a feat few corps in FMA pulled off!
Their first ever foray into Division I saw them performing Claude T. Smith's Variations on a theme by Louis Borgeouis and tying it with a storyline of France's history. This show was filled with extreme virtuosic brass playing and exciting percussion, despite a fairly weak show concept as compared to previous seasons. This was still enough for them to clinch 7th place on Finals night in their first season in Division I with a score of 93.620. Though it wasn't an immediate hit on audiences and the judges, the show was constantly revised and became more cohesive and convincing to the audience. Whilst not necessarily considered an off year, the creative team felt that they weren't flexing their programming powers and needed to give justice to the performing members who have been such a dedicated and talented team to work with.
This brings us to "Metropolis 1927: When Two Worlds Collide", a show conceived by the creative team where they felt proud of presenting and would give the corps their best show so far, and it did. The show is based off a German science-fiction film of the same name by Fritz Lang, and also a piece of brass band literature by Peter Graham, also based on the same name and film. The show is set in a futuristic, dystopian city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, where the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences (sorry if there are any spoilers all, it's a wonderful silent film if anyone is interested). The creative team borrowed some elements from the film, such as its dark expressionistic overtones and the futuristic and dystopian look. Not only did the corps finish the season with an all-time high score of 95.165, they've also managed to break into the upper half of the leaderboard by placing 5th at Division I Finals!
Over the next few seasons, the SIA Cadets continued to climb the leaderboard and maintain its presence in the top 6 with two consecutive 4th place finishes in Season 66 and 67, where the corps had it's highest ever score of 97.800. However, unlike the other performing arts groups in the SIA Organisation, they haven’t had the chance to earn a medal in Division 1. The Cadets came close in Season 66, but trailed the then 3rd place winner Vincent Storm by a razor-thin margin of 0.06! The next season was the same story of ‘so close, yet so far’, with Nemesis finishing ahead by 0.53 points.
Finally, 4 seasons after being promoted to Division 1, the SIA Cadets finally did it! The creative team really worked their asses off for that season’s show, “Altered State of Mind: When Reality Becomes Blurred”,and it was a hit with the audience! As alxmm98 once wrote in an article,"The premise of entering the mind of a schizophrenic is the most original concept in a long time from a drum corps, and the music is otherworldly. It is a blend of classical themes and modern sound amplification and distortion. This combination has proven to be quite amazing, and fans are in love with the concept". This was a clear testament to their efforts to be one of the most innovative groups in the game.
After this season, the Executive Director made some tremendous changes within the organisation to ensure that it progresses. Whilst the SIA Cadets uses modern marching techniques and concepts in shows, they still felt that we are being held back by a few ‘old school’ military aspects that date all the way back to Season 12. Therefore, in an effort to help the corps to progress and become much more progressive and competitive, the whole organisation will be underwent restructuring to gear themselves to be one of the elite.
The 4 main performing arts groups of the SIA Organisation underwent some massive staff changes, and were rebranded as follows:
SIA Cadets => Re:Sound Collective
SIA Knights => Excelsior Winds
SIA Stars => Antiphony
SIA Beats => conNexus
The 4 feeder groups remain unchanged as a tribute to their colorful past. With that, the SIA Cadets continued to finish in the top 6 until Season 70 where despite being top 6 throughout the season, they were bested by the Vanguard Knights on Semis and Finals night by 5 thousandths of a point!
Season 70 marked the end of the golden era of the SIA Organisation as it ended it's partnership with the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, hence losing most of its potential talent pool and funding. In addition to that, many of our veterans and core staff had left the organisation to join groups that had higher prestige, leaving the organisation in unstable times. Whilst we were able to sustain our competitive edge for another season, our Executive Director decided that for the organisation to survive it must rebuild its foundation. Hence in Season 72, the Excecutive Director announced plans for the administration to go in semi-competitive, semi-administration status. Groups will only be allowed to train and tour on weekends, which meant that there was little to no growth in scores throughout the season. Collective only managed a semi finalist status till season 76, hence all groups were put into administration.
Season 80 marks the return to of the organisation, now armed with financial muscle that allowed the groups to hire fantastic staff and garner many young talented members.
Level: 91
Influence: 108702
Hometown: SIA
League: STAMP The percussions of SIA Cadets. Established in Season 14. Debut in Season 16. Highest score achieved: 92.770 (S67 Div 1, 2nd place)
Medals: S67 Div I Silver, S65 Div II Champ
Finalist: Div I - S66, Div II - S64, Div III - S63
Show Title
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: A Jubilee Celebration
Repertoire
~ In celebration of the SIA Organisation’s 60th Anniversary ~
What a ride it has been! From our humble beginnings we moved on and on; highlights range from being crowned Division 3 Champions in our first season back as the SIA Cadets (what a way to celebrate our Golden Jubilee!) to being a Division 1 G7 organisation in all the circuits! We’ve really come a long way since our inception in Season 12. While I would’ve loved to continue the development and competitive climb of our organization, I believe that my current commitments irl would not allow me to sustain a fully competitive season, hence this season would be a semi-competitive, semi-administrative one. As such, we are proud to announce our new Season 72 program, “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow!”, a story of our short, but colorful history in FMA.
The name of the show comes from a quote that originally alludes to the briefness of the human lifespan. This phrase was first recorded in John Calvin's Life and Conversion of a Christian Man (1549): “This proverb that man is here today and gone tomorrow”. Nowadays, this quote is used to define something that lasts for only a short time. While 10 seasons isn’t really considered a short term in relative to real life (1 season is about 6 weeks (?)), it went by pretty quickly. I guess time flies when you're having fun!
The show kicks off with Philip Sparke’s Jubilee Overture, which was commissioned for the fiftieth anniversary of the British-based Virtuosi GUS Brass Band and first performed by them at the band’s Golden Jubilee Concert in 1983. It was later transcribed for wind band in 1984. The overture begins with a two-part fanfare - a brass flourish followed by a reflective chorale for the winds. This builds to a climax as the flourish returns. A lively allegro follows, with many changes of meter and a robust tune from the mellos horns and saxophones. Eventually a cantabile tune emerges briefly before the allegro returns and transitions into a repeat of the opening fanfare, which then proceeds to end off into a vivid presto coda.
Variation IX (Adagio) (popular known as “Nimrod") of Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations will serve as the ballad for this show. Elgar dedicated the work "to my friends pictured within", each variation being a musical sketch of one of his circle of close acquaintance. This variation in particular was dedicated to Augustus J. Jaeger, who was an Anglo-German music publisher and close friend of Elgar’s. In 1904 Elgar told Dora Penny ("Dorabella") that this variation is not really a portrait, but "the story of something that happened". Once, when Elgar had been very depressed and was about to give it all up and write no more music, Jaeger had visited him and encouraged him to continue composing. He referred to Ludwig van Beethoven, who had a lot of worries, but wrote more and more beautiful music. "And that is what you must do", Jaeger said, and he sang the theme of the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 Pathétique. Elgar disclosed to Dora that the opening bars of "Nimrod" were made to suggest that theme. "Can't you hear it at the beginning? Only a hint, not a quotation." This variation has become popular in its own right and is sometimes used at British funerals, memorial services, and other solemn occasions. In this show, it is used as a reflection on our fleeting existence in FMA, shining for a brief period of time.
Our drum break and closer will be something that is familiar to us all, the closing segment of the Cadet’s 2000 season production, "We are the Future". This is one of my favourite moments from the Cadets, who had a fantastic comeback season this year despite all the controversy and problems they encountered. As a tribute to corps that inspired the formation of the SIA Cadets, I’ve decided to incorporate the closing segment of the Cadet’s 2000 season production as our drum break and closer. The music used in this segment I believe is The Promise (from Millennium Celebration) by Gavin Greenaway (My apologies if I left out another number!), which was written for the turn-of-the-millennium festivities at Walt Disney World. As one might be expected for the soundtrack of such a momentous occasion, the music is alternately dramatic and uplifting, capturing both the grandeur and goodwill of the event. This segment aims to show that we still intend to leave a mark in FMA, and will be returning with a bang in future!
This show will be performed and adapted by all the performing arts groups in the SIA Organisation. In addition to our show announcement, the Re:Sound Collective will return to the field as the SIA Cadets once again as a tribute to our colorful past. The other performing arts groups in the organisation will follow suit. We hope that you enjoy our music selection this year, and we look forward to returning to full time competitive status soon!
Music selection:
Opener: Jubilee Overture by Philip Sparke - https://youtu.be/2TO93vGf8Is
Ballad: Variation IX (Adagio) “Nimrod" from Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations - https://youtu.be/sUgoBb8m1eE
Drum Break and Closer: The closing segment of the Cadet’s 2000 season production, "We are the Future" - https://youtu.be/vq7hZ4U-Pac