April 9 to 15 There was a steady stream of news, both good and bad. Veteran singer Ismail Haron, dubbed the Tom Jones of local Malay music, passed away at the age of 65. Singapore’s pioneering cable radio station Rediffusion announced it will stop broadcasting at the end of April, while Telok Ayer Performing Arts Centre will be also be closing in 2013. Meanwhile, in a coup for the local art scene, Singaporean curator June Yap was appointed to set up an exhibition at the prestigious Guggenheim Museum in New York. Elsewhere, the Board Of Film Censors gets a new chairperson in Chetra Sinnathamby — who takes over from Amy Chua — to oversee films, video games and arts. The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts responded to queries by Arts NMP Janice Koh, and revealed that Government has spent more than S$4 million on local music over the last three years. It also detailed how the allocated budget of S$210 million for the Community Engagement Masterplan will be divvied up for the next five years, with nearly half of it (S$100.3 million) going to creating “cultural concierges” in libraries and community centres.