i've always been looking forward to the annual singapore arts festival every year and sadly, year after year i've been disappointed time and time again. without a doubt, there has been much changes since the inaugural with the introduction of bringing the arts to a greater portion of the community with an emphasis on the heartlands. this year, it was no different. the opening ceremony will be held in boat quay, and the closing ceremony held at bedok reservoir. both are water themed events so if not for my being in taiwan, i would be really looking forward to the water spectacular event. so i was mentioning about my disappointment, despite all these wonderful changes. the local arts scene in singapore is a bustling one; we boast of world-class orchestras such as our national orchestra and even smaller community ones such as the philharmonic winds; we also have world-class dance groups, and musicians and visual artists and fashion designers and whatelsehavewe. but yet we always tend to forget, we referring to the larger majority of the local population, that we too have a young and bustling arts scene amongst our youths! if our dance scene and music scene is not enough to woo audiences, and for that matter i'm not too sure of their international reputation as well, i'm pretty sure our choral scene is more than 'happening'. when you have a local school choir, aka the Victoria Junior College Choir ranked fourth in the world, or Victoria Chorale, ranked thirteenth in the world rankings, it's surprising that we don't get to perform in this seemingly world-class event; at least, that's what the organisers try to make it to be. look, maybe i was bias in quoting those examples of which i was and am still part of, but nevertheless my point is clear. how come year after year we're not promoting our local youth arts scene, to the world? with the coming youth olympic games in 2010, i really do hope that the organisers can look into this issue at hand. at least give us the oppurtunity to do our part in bringing singapore to the world, because right now you're not.