Riduan Zalani is a versatile percussionist with a keen interest in developing Southeast Asian ethnic drumming in contemporary settings and spotlighting Asian musical traditions on a global stage. An idealist at heart, he takes his dreams to the spotlight through his creative vision while serving his community of musicians, hoping to bring up their level of virtuosity to the world stage. This multi award-winning performer has performed in numerous local and international programmes, which culminated in him earning the prestigious National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award in 2015.
His skills, discipline, and dedication made him a force to be reckoned with among international artists, which brought him to various international festivals and performances in more than 60 states throughout Europe, Asia, America, and Oceania, touching more than 100,000 audience members. In the early parts of his career, he played a key role in numerous performing groups in Singapore, such as Wicked Aura Batucada, SONOFA, Keris Movements, The Singapore Malay Orchestra and continues to do so today. He subsequently co-founded two other groups to further explore ethnic Malay music with likeminded peers, Alhafiz Jamat and Ismahairie Putra Ishak to form Orkestar Trio, and Yaziz Hassan to form NADI Singapura. For his contributions to the music scene locally and abroad, Riduan Zalani has been listed as Singapore’s top 25 youths under the age of 25 by The Straits Times (2005) and awarded the Goh Chok Tong Youth Promise Award in 2006. In August 2012, he was bestowed the Yahoo! Singapore9 Award under the Entertainment Category. Subsequently, he is awarded the Singapore Youth Award 2013 and the ASEAN Youth Award 2013.
Riduan’s past works in performing and producing albums led up to the launch of NADI Singapura’s albums “Kata Kita Kota” (2016) and “Bumi Tak Diam” (2018). He also recently launched his own solo album “Gelombunk” which highlights the versatility of the Rebana Asli that also pushes limits in creativity, alongside an instructional DVD on playing Rebana Asli “That Beat of Faith” concurrently, complete with technical drills and over 100 practice tabs. His other recent works include being the artistic director of RENTAS, an artist residency programme under the inaugural Gemadah – Traditional Malay Music Festival. He mentored two young and upcoming music artists, Syafiqah ‘Adha and Megat Firdaus, in their composition and performance for the festival. He is also the Artistic Director for World Drum Night 2015, 2016, and 2018, which features over 10 drumming ensembles from various tertiary institutions in Singapore.
Some of his earlier works include choreographing a segment of Singapore’s National Day Parade 2009, composing for the Singapore Youth Olympic Games 2010, representing Singapore in Spotlight Singapore Tokyo (2006), Moscow (2008), Capetown (2011), Bratislava (2012), which were all directed by Cultural Medallion Award Recipient, the late Mr Iskandar Ismail, and Mexico (2014). He also toured on Batucada Sound Machine’s (New Zealand) 9-weeks long 2012 European tour and AUNJ Classic Orchestra’s ONE ASIA Joint Concert (Japan) in 2016 through 6 prefectures where he represented Singapore and played solely on the Rebana Asli. He also co-directed Temasya Kampung Glam – 2011 Festival showcase of art and music commissioned by the Singapore Malay Heritage Foundation, a 350 man team in DrumGaia for the Marina Bay Countdown celebration 2014, and directing the Malay contingent of Chingay Parade 2015, 2016, and 2017, and the GOH entourage in 2018. Each troupe consisted of more than 300 participants every year. Through NADI Singapura, he helped the group launch several programmes that are now part of their annual season including Himpunan Serumpun in 2014 which brings the Malay community of arts practitioners and cultural enthusiasts together, Singa DrumGaia in 2015, a festival for world drums that grew from the 2014 DrumGaia performance, Yok Sembang Gendang in 2015 as a community engagement programme, and Serentak in 2016, a platform to showcase original compositions from NADI Singapura’s members.