Michelle Loh

Michelle Loh is a bilingual arts manager and researcher in arts management and cultural policy. She serves on the executive committee of Poetry Festival Singapore and the organising committee of the biennial Singapore Literature Conference. Her research interests in traditional Chinese music, cultural policy and arts management led her to be the Principal Investigator of Tracking Creative Developments in Traditional Chinese Music in Singapore 1999 – 2015, supported by National Arts Council Research & Development Grant and LASALLE College of the Arts Major Research Fund.

Michelle worked in London at the Tate Britain and International Intelligence on Culture. Her project with Late Nights @ Tate series brought in new audiences and visitors through a variety of music events. She was also a researcher with the International Intelligence on Culture in the areas of cultural policy and cultural indicators in European countries.

Michelle returned to Singapore as arts manager at National University of Singapore Centre for the Arts. She played a key role in the establishment, inception and management of Singapore’s leading Chinese Instrumental Examination system. She managed numerous performances at the annual NUS Arts Festival and also organised international concert tours to the UK, Switzerland, Malaysia etc. Michelle has a music education in classical piano and Chinese pipa. She taught and performed in both instruments, organised traditiona/classical/fusion music performances and international music tours.

Michelle is currently on LASALLE Academic Qualifications Fund scholarship for her doctorate studies at the University of Western Australia. Her topic is "Evolution of Multiculturalism and Arts Policies in Singapore". She has a Masters (Arts Management) from City University London, and BSc. (Real Estate) from National University of Singapore. 

Undergraduate modules

Arts Policy

Dissertation

Research Writing

Michelle has also taught the following modules: History and Contextual Studies (Music), Academic Writing, Grant Proposal Writing, Principles of Arts Management, Artist Management, Research Methodologies.

Postgraduate modules

Research Methods 

Introduction to Postgraduate Studies

Dissertation 

My research spans cultural policy, arts management, traditional arts, audiences, festivals and education. 

I can take dissertation students with the above interests and beyond. 

• Documentary research
• Ethnography
• Mapping and documentation
• Case study
• Archival research
• Qualitative methods such as interviews, focus groups and observations
• Quantitative methods such as surveys and statistical analysis

My current major research project is my doctoral thesis on "Evolution of Multiculturalism and Arts Policies in Singapore". I am interested in analysing the evolution of multiculturalism in relation to arts policies, how multiculturalism is portrayed through and in the arts from 1965 to 2020. 

Keywords: multiculturalism, diversity, interculturalism, cultural policies

Secondary project: planning and implementation of a research database with one of Singapore's national-level arts institutions.

• Loh, Michelle. 2024. "Chapter 12: Cultural Policy and Cultural Leadership: Kenneth Kwok (Ministry of National Development, Singapore): in conversation". Cultural Leadership in Practice, 201-215. London and New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003390725
• Loh, Michelle. 2023. "Kenneth Kwok (Ministry of National Development, Singapore): in conversation". Cultural Trends, DOI: 10.1080/09548963.2023.2201974
• Loh, Michelle. 2022. "Superdiversity and Cultural Policies in Post Pandemic Singapore", ENCATC policy tracker April 2022, European Network on Cultural Management and Policy.
• Loh, Michelle. 2022. "Language: Audiences for Singapore's poetry festival" in Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts, Eds. Matthew Reason, Lynne Conner, Katya Johanson and Ben Walmsley. New York: Routledge.
• Loh, Michelle and Lum Yan Sing (eds). 2020. Traditional Chinese Music in Contemporary Singapore. Singapore: Pagesetters.
• Loh, Michelle. 2020. "Music Examinations: Results of the new Paperchase". In Traditional Chinese Music in Contemporary Singapore, eds. Michelle Loh and Lum Yan Sing, 254-291. Singapore: Pagesetters.
• Loh, Michelle. 2016. "The Mother and Son" in SG Poems 2015/16, National Poetry Festival. Singapore: Ethos Publishing.
• 'First-World Economy, Third-World Culture', no. 6 The Arts Part I, Ed. Tan Tarn How, www.s-pores.com (2009)
• Loh, Michelle. 2008. "Case Study of Singapore: Performing Arts and The Role of Cultural Policy at the Level". In Putting Culture First: Commonwealth Perspectives on Culture and Development, edited by Andrew Firmin, UK: Commonwealth Foundation.
• Liew, Wei-Wen and Loh, Michelle. 2006. "E-marketing, Communications and the International Tourist". In Museum Marketing: Competing in the Global Marketplace, Eds Ruth Rentschler and Anne Marie Hede, Butterworth-Heinemann Elsevier.

Academic supervision is always a personal passion and I am deeply committed to working with dissertation and research students to achieve excellence. I am interested in these topics:

• diversity, interculturalism, multiculturalism, multiracialism, inclusion/exclusion, superdiversity
• cultural policy, cultural governance
• culture and politics
• culture and population
• traditional arts and management in practice
• audiences, new audiences, multicultural audience, multilingual audience
• any other topic with a Singapore case study

2014 to 2022: Vice-President, Poetry Festival Singapore

2018 to 2020: Treasurer, Poetry Festival Singapore

2014 to 2024: Committee member, Singapore Literature Conference (biennial)

Michelle is Vice-President, Executive Committee of Poetry Festival (Singapore) from 2014 till 2022. She has held the Treasurer position and successfully obtained National Arts Council Seed Grant from 2016 to 2018.

She is also part of the organising committee for Singapore Literature Conference, held biennially.

Michelle serves actively in the traditional Chinese music industry in Singapore.

I would be interested to supervise Arts Projects, developed in collaboration with the following industry partners:

• Traditional arts
• National institutions
• Publicly funded arts institutions
• Performing arts centres and spaces 
• Embassies, councils, agencies in diplomacy work
• Private galleries and online galleries 
• Statutory boards, state agencies, arts councils, cultural ministries and censorship boards

• Invited speaker "The Music Plays On" organised by Southeast Asian Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts, June 2022
• Awarded LASALLE College of the Arts Academic Scholarship, full scholarship for full-time doctorate studies at University of Western Australia 2020 to 2023.
• Awarded National Arts Council Seed Grant 2016-2018 on behalf of Poetry Festival (Singapore), $50,000 to $80,000 annually.
• Principal Investigator, Co-editor and Chapter Contributor of "Traditional Chinese Music in Contemporary Singapore", published by Ethos Pagesetters, 2020. This research project culminated into a book, supported by the National Arts Council Research and Development Scheme, and LASALLE College of the Arts Major Research Fund (total $68,000). The book is nominated for book prize at the 12th International Convention of Asia Scholars 2021, held in Kyoto Japan.