Nobody Put His Name On It

He arranged for Asia's biggest Chinese pop stars in a language he never spoke a word of, and used the salary to fund the national work nobody put his name on. The work that pays and the work that matters are two different jobs. He engineered one to buy the other.

Every August, Singapore fills up with the same National Day songs.

The man behind a lot of that music paid for it with Cantopop. He arranged for Jacky Cheung and Aaron Kwok. In a language he never spoke a word of.

His name was Iskandar Mirza Ismail.

I never once thought about who was arranging those songs.

Here's what I didn't know until recently:

In 2013 a reporter reached him by telephone.

"The Chinese pop music market was what spurred me on. No one knows this. … They employed me and paid me a salary such that I could afford to have my own recording studio."

Start with his mother. Nona Asiah was one of the big Malay singers of her generation. Her own teacher was Zubir Said, the man who wrote Majulah Singapura.

Through her, Iskandar was sent to Zubir for weekly piano lessons, aged eight. They ran three years. Zubir later urged him toward Berklee.

Iskandar came home from Berklee and the training worked against him. A profile written while he was alive says he found himself "too qualified" for most jobs in the music industry.

So he took the work that paid. Warner Taiwan, for around fifteen years. Jacky Cheung. Sandy Lam. George Lam.

He spoke zero Chinese.

That salary bought the studio. The studio is what let him do the other work. The work nobody put his name on.

His first National Day Parade credit is 1988, as composer and arranger. His last is 2012. Nine documented years in all. Four different job titles. Gaps throughout. He was music director for five of those years: 1994, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012.

Take the 2004 parade. He arranged and directed for a 60-strong national youth orchestra. Twenty players from the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. Two tabla players. Six rappers. A children's choir. Kit Chan and JJ Lin as soloists.

He arranged "Home" twice for the same night. Hip-hop for Lin. A choral finale for Chan.

Now read the official news release for the 2012 parade.

It names nine fighter jets. It names an LED backdrop shaped like the island.

It never names the music director.

Iskandar was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in 2010. He kept taking the work. He died on 1 November 2014, aged 58.

Here's what stays with me:

The work that pays and the work that matters are usually two different jobs.

Most people pick one and resent the other. Grind at the paying one and feel hollow. Chase the meaningful one and go broke.

He refused the choice. He got very good at something commercial. And the salary from it built the studio everything else ran on.

The jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro: "I don't think there's any Singaporean who hasn't heard his music."

What Iskandar asked for was smaller. "I just hope that (people will) remember me as a musician. One of the local musicians from Singapore, that's all. Nothing more, nothing less."

What's your Cantopop — and what is it paying for?