From its beginnings as Singapore’s only university, NUS has never appeared to make a lot of effort to reach out to its alumni – probably largely due to generous government funding. Unlike often cash-starved US and UK universities, NUS has always seemed flush with funds – throwing up new buildings and facilities with gay abandon. P feels that she is in a position to judge due to her collection of various degrees from different institutes at various levels. She always felt closer to her London alma maters (was it the smaller class sizes?) than to NUS, where she often felt lost in a faceless crowd (some lectures had nearly 400 students).

Don’t get her wrong – P made some good friends at NUS and remains very close to one of her lecturers there (who is now back in the States) who was her first mentor and helped shape her graduate career. However, the school as a whole remained an abstraction rather than something close to her heart.

This is all set to change in this era of increasing corporatisation (or at least NUS’s version of the same).

The recently-completed Shaw Foundation Alumni House is intended to serve as a home for returning alumni. Given the tiny size of Singapore island, NUS alumni that have not migrated can probably give few excuses for not dropping by.

P particularly liked the Waterway, a gallery with leaping metal salmon over a trickling watercourse, meant to symbolise alumni returning to the home stream. (P often wonders how come people who use this analogy never quite seem to realise that the returning salmon die shortly after spawning – ah well). Seriously speaking, the building was very impressive, all marble-esque floors and twining spiral staircases and is home to an auditorium, a plethora of conference and seminar rooms and a massive courtyard filled with some strange sculptures.

It was in the 300-seater auditorium that P found herself listening to a very enjoyable Jazz and Oldies concert, helmed by cultural medallion winner Iskander Ismail. The repertoire ran the gamut from Cole Porter to Rihanna (the ubiquitous Umbrella song), and there were some real standout performers. Law alumnus Rani Singam and Arts alumnus Karen Tan had already made the leap to professional performing (singing and acting respectively) so were rather expected to perform well. The madcap Karen ‘though, pulled off a great standup comedy routine before launching into a great rendition of Billy Joel’s You’re My Home (if only her fashion sense had been as good!). Notable among the undergraduate performers was Engineering student Shilli Yap who sang an Aretha Franklin medley with soul, a fantastic voice that never seemed to end and a great sense of rhythm. Tay Kexin as well did a nice job with the ubiquitous Umbrella – big voice for such a small girl.

The NUS Jazz band mostly supported the music pretty well, but they were dreadfully pedestrian about it and most important, really did not appear to be enjoying themselves. Their leader, Iskander, in contrast was going great guns throughout on the keyboard.

On the whole a very pleasant evening, almost unexpectedly so, for a free concert.

Leaving you with original footage of Aretha Franklin singing Chain of Fools.