Singapore singer and actor Nathan Hartono will not be seen in China's Zhejiang show as he wants to explore opportunities outside the TV and the reality show framework.
Hartono rose to fame after becoming the first runner-up in the Chinese reality television singing competition, Sing! China. The ethnic Chinese singer though wants to build his career in China, but said will not take part in televised singing programmes that are associated with Sing! China.
"These shows are like 'as seen on TV' type of commercials. So I want to avoid doing them for a while as I am trying to define myself outside of the show and depart from the image portrayed there," said Hartono , according to Straits Times.
He further said that while he enjoyed his interaction with the mainstream audiences, he will stay away from doing reality shows for a while as he had "very little control of his image on the show" because they are often dictated by marketing terms and edited accordingly.
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His efforts to stay away from reality shows were pretty obvious when the 25-year-old singer did not mention Sing! China during a showcase concert called Up-Close With Nathan Hartono. Moreover, he referred to the reality show as "a certain Chinese show" before singing four Mandarin songs that he had sung for the competition, reported the news website. The concert, which was a part of a series of music events organised by telco Singtel, was held at the Millian Singapore club in St James Power Station on 21 January.
The concert was indeed a success as the singer sang 13 songs while the crowd of 600 plus cheered. The set list included his old songs as well as two new songs from his upcoming EP, which is likely to release in June 2017.
The EP, which the singer says is an experiment, will be released through Warner Music Singapore. "The songs on this EP will have a lot more groove and elements of free-flow jazz and I am finding a way to incorporate some R&B that I have been messing with in my live shows," said the singer, as reported.
However, the singer also revealed that he is not very sure how well the EP will do as he is mixing English and Mandarin songs – something that not many artists have done before. "Some people may view this as inconsistency, but I have been doing English music for too long to throw it away suddenly," he said. "I want to be true to myself and, hopefully, I can find ways to reflect my style in my Chinese music," he added.
