The Metropolitan Festival Orchestra (MFO) is Singapore’s first and only fully-independent professional symphony orchestra. With its roots in the acclaimed Singapore Festival Orchestra (SFO), resident orchestra of the Singapore Arts Festival from 2007 to 2012, the MFO was founded in 2013 as the spiritual successor of the SFO. Notable international collaborations include performances with the Korea National Opera, Tan Dun, Kitaro, Paul Anka and Il Divo. First-in-Singapore programmes include the Southeast Asian and Asian premieres of live-to-projection performances of Howard Shore's full soundtrack score to the first 2 movies of the The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy; the Southeast Asian premiere of Disney’s most successful live orchestra concert production – Disney on Classic; collaborations with international pianist Lang Lang and other top Singaporean pop talents as part of the Sing50 mega-concert at the National Stadium; and the wildly-successfully Star Wars & Beyond concert experience at the Marina Bay Sands. The MFO also supports the development of local young music talent through its work as the resident accompanying orchestra of the National Piano & Violin Competition organised by the National Arts Council; and is a partner of INSEAD – The Business School for the World (Asia Campus) in presenting a series of specialised executive training modules, as well as running the MFO's own in-house Sounds of Leadership workshop, all of which use the orchestra as a model of a high performance organisation to impart important concepts such as leadership, communication and collaboration in business organisations.