On the evening of 2nd April 2026, the main meeting room in Singapore’s recently renovated Freemasons’ Hall (FMH) became a temporary concert venue for a performance by students from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) School of Music.
Three separate groups of musicians performed, namely a trombone quartet, woodwind quartet and string ensemble.
The students played a selection of works by Bro Mozart, Bro Haydn and Jean Sibelius, including such well-known pieces as the overture to “Le Nozze di Figaro” and Haydn’s Opus 76 No 3 the “Emperor”.
This was the first time in the nearly 150 years of its history that FMH had been used for such a concert, which was also open to members of the public.
It was a wonderful opportunity to showcase not only the skills of the NAFA Musicians but also the results of the SGD 2.5million renovation of this heritage building.
The event was organised jointly by The Masonic Charitable Fund (MCF) and Lodge Scientia No 9993 E.C. (Lodge Scientia).
MCF has been involved with supporting financially disadvantaged students from NAFA since 2020 by means of bursaries. MCF was launched in Singapore in 2019 by the then Assistant Grand Master Sir David Hugh Wooton. It is focussed on helping needy students in Singapore, regardless of race, creed or religion and is a registered charity run by a Board of Trustees and co-opted members from the four Masonic constitutions present in Singapore: English, Irish, Scottish and French.
Lodge Scientia was the brainchild of the current Worshipful Master, WBro Dr Ronald Ng, who took as his template Old King’s Arms Lodge No 28 E.C. which was active in the early 18th century and met to present topics of scientific interest and even to demonstrate experiments.
Following in this tradition, Lodge Scientia has covered subjects as diverse as Communications Between Trees, the Direction of AI (by Prof Andrew Ng, Founder of Google brain and Coursera and the son of WBro Dr Ronald Ng) and a dissertation on Fermentation, including the brewing of beer.
This concert was conceived partly as a “thank you” to the Masonic community and as a fund-raiser for MCF.
The Right Worshipful District Grand Master of the District Grand Lodge of the Eastern Archipelago, RWBro Mahathir Mahzan, who is the Patron of the MCF, attended the concert to enjoy the music and present a cheque for SGD 20,000 to Dr Ernest Lim, Dean of the Faculty of Performing Arts, NAFA.
The concert was followed by a reception held in the Masonic Club located in the basement floor of the building where the evening was declared to be a great success by all who attended.
So great was the enthusiasm that NAFA and Lodge Scientia are committed to making this an annual event for a minimum run of five more years.
By WBro. Neil Tottman
Masonic Charitable Fund, Singapore
