S’pore musician Ruth Ling has big ambitions for Red Roof Records

Most people may have no idea who Ruth Ling is, but in the last decade or so, after graduating from Berklee College of Music in Boston in 2002 (bachelor’s in music, summa cum laude), the Singaporean musician and 2013 Young Artist Award recipient has chalked up quite an impressive resume.

She has performed extensively all over the world, from Las Vegas to Mongolia to London, and backed some of the biggest names in Asian pop, such as Stefanie Sun, A-mei, Dick Lee and Sandy Lam. She has also arranged works for musical theatre, pantomime, the National Day Parade and the Youth Olympic Games. She even found time to go back to school; A few years ago, Ling did her masters in contemporary music performance at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford, England.

“I think I’m in this unique position — not young enough to be a newbie, not old enough to be jaded,” said Ling, who has five releases to her name. “I think there’s no better time than now (for Singapore pop music). When I came back from Berklee, I would have loved it if it was such a time as this — I missed the boat! In 2007, I released my own EP, but at the time, it wasn’t as easy to market an album as it is now. I missed the xinyao era as well. I wish that I had lived during the xinyao era. I would have loved that community. I did go to a xinyao camp, but right after that, xinyao was over — finished!”

In 2012, Ling launched Red Roof Records, with the aim of producing and marketing “pop hits of tomorrow that would promote Singaporean talent and resonate with audiences globally”. The label recently launched the Sing, Love compilation album. Meant as a musical celebration to commemorate SG50, the album consists of five tracks sung in four languages — English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil — to reflect the theme, Our Family, Our Home. The first single off the album, Starlight, is available for free download on IMC Live (http://www.imclive-group.com/). The label has also signed up jazz singer Joanna Dong and plans to release her album later this year, and Red Roof is involved in The LKY Musical.

One of the reasons that she started a label was to help “the scene grow”. “The reason a lot of indie artistes are doing really well right now is that they have found people to manage their careers. They found people who believe in them and who know how to market and clinch the deals for them,” she said. “That’s key (to success).”

She continued: “I feel that (music management) is the link between getting an album done and getting an album heard, and I want to (help other artistes) get albums heard. There are many other fantastic arrangers, producers and songwriters out there ... but not everybody is interested in the business part. (That’s why) I’m moving in that direction.”

Ling calls her team at Red Roof “mini mes” (“They’re like me — they perform, produce, write, do marketing, admin ...”), but their tasks are anything but minute: They are, for example, currently involved in preparing the music for The LKY Musical, starring Adrian Pang and Sharon Au. “I don’t have time to work on it as an arranger, but I am supervising the orchestration,” she said.

Ling said these days, she feels she has a bigger role to play than just being a musician, which means that she will be making fewer appearances on stage. “Unfortunately, I won’t be doing so much ... That said, I believe in mentoring the next generation. Rather than just leave the performing scene per se, I would like to train people who can fill the gap. That way, I can still be involved. I can just supervise. I’d like to raise awareness for the next wave.”

Although Ling has her hands full — there’s the launch concert for Sing, Love in early July, The LKY Musical at the end of that month and Joanna Dong’s album in the last quarter of the year — she still many more surprises up her sleeve. “I’ve been thinking about doing a Mandarin jazz musical that’s local, original and big-scale. I’m thinking of something that we can export to Taiwan and China, where there’s a growing music theatre market at the moment,” she said.

“There are no definitive Chinese musicals except for Jacky Cheung’s Snow. Wolf. Lake. We want to do the next Snow. Wolf. Lake,” Ling continued, adding that the musical would contain a mix of new and familiar jazz tunes. “When people think of Chinese jazz tunes, they think only of the Shanghai jazz era, but I’d like to bring some new Mandarin jazz. We want to involve a lot of local scriptwriters and songwriters. But I can’t say anything else yet. One step at a time!”