The Stories Behind: The wedding singer who also belts out cheerful songs at funerals to celebrate life
But Ms Teh and her band, who are part of the Singapore Funeral Live Band, do not perform regular gigs on concert stages or in nightclubs. ”Whether the grieving families are happy or sad, our performance is a way for them to release their emotions... it can be a celebration of the competition of life," she said in Mandarin.
The video has been viewed more than 618,000 times and has garnered about 11,400 likes since it was published in April.Yet, in her experience as a funeral singer, she has found that there is more than one way for grieving families to come to terms with a loved one's passing, she added.She came to this realisation a year ago when she attended the funeral of her friend's mother.
At the time, Ms Teh did not only sing at funerals. Besides teaching music, she was, and still is, a singer at Musical Touch, a company that provides live music for weddings and events founded by Mr Alvin Khoo.Mr Khoo had decided to offer the services after attending a funeral where he realised some musicians were not professionally trained and would only play sad songs. However, many of the musicians in his company Musical Touch were not willing to sing at funerals.
As for Ms Teh, she said that she and her family and friends do not find it"pantang" to sing happy songs at a funeral. "There's a range of possible emotions that you can't predict, so you have to go and perform whatever suits the family." As we spoke at the sidelines of the wake in Yew Tee where she was performing, Ms Teh occasionally got interrupted by family members who were attending event. They smiled at her and thanked her for her performance — a stark contrast to their grieving and solemn faces before the performance.