"Music about China" concert will be held on 23 March, at 8pm, at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall. Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra invited some of the most innovative composers of the world today to join it in conjuring up facets of China, fantastic or real, in different ages of time.

    You can be an armchair traveler shuttling through Time and space. The programme includes:

    Symphonic Poem: Facets of the Silk Road by Han Lankui. This is a work with lyrical and epic dimensions that is also a celebration of life and love;

    Impressions of Yungang by Cheng Dazhao. It brings the magnificent Apsara dancing figures in the Yungang Grottoes of Shanxi back to life to recreate the lively scene of a prosperous city in northern China more than 1,600 years ago where different races lived in harmony;

    The Magic Boat commissioned by Marcel Wengler. It is an exciting narrative piece based on a Chinese tale which follows the romantic and exciting adventures of the protagonist in the mysterious Middle Kingdom;

    A Sorrowful Tune. Zhu Jianer based on the fisherman's songs in Guangdong, gives us the gloomy side of life of the fishing folk. Zhu wrote the piece after making his field trips to the coastal areas of Guangdong province in the early 1960's. The devastation of a people living at the mercy of the sea is in stark contrast to the usual ebullient praise of bumper catches and beautiful days as expressed in folk tunes;

    The Song of Flight by Tang Jianping. It brings you to the rousing festivities of the ethnic minorities of the Miao's nad the Yi's living in the southwestern part of China; and

    Traces IV by Wen Deqing. It takes the suona to its limits, wielding it as a brush and rolling out the orchestra like a rice paper scroll and in the spirit of Chinese calligraphy, displays his perception of musicality through kinetic moves.

    Tickets for "Music about China" concert are now available at all URBTIX Outlets at $300, 200 and 100. Half-price tickets are offered for senior citizens, people with disabilities and full-time students. Please refer to the programme leaflet for more details on discount schemes. Enquiries: 3185 1600; Booking Hotline: 2734 9009. Internet Booking: www.urbtix.hk; HKCO website: www.hkco.org .

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Artists Biography

Yan Huichang    Conductor
National Class One Conductor. As a conductor who has worked with all professional Chinese orchestras in Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, Yan has won the acclaim of the music circles in China and abroad for his artistic and conducting talents. Under his baton, and in collaboration with the famous composer Zhao Jiping, the Symphony Orchestra section of the China National Symphony Orchestra made the soundtrack recordings for such award-winning films as Raise the Red Lantern, Ballad of the Yellow River, and Five Girls and a Rope. Yan was awarded the "Cultural Medallion (Music)" by the National Arts Council of Singapore in September 2001. Since 2004, he has been a Visiting Professor in many music conservatories. Yan was awarded a Bronze Bauhinia Star (BBS) by the Chief Executive of HKSAR in 2004 in recognition of his remarkable achievements in Chinese music as well as his efforts in promoting Chinese music.

Han Lankui.    Symphonic Poem: Facets of the Silk Road
Han Lankui is currently Head of Composition, professor and Assistant to the Director of Xi'an Conservatory of Music. His works have won for him many awards in national competitions. He has won acclamation for his Chinese orchestral version of Facets of the Silk Road when it was being premiered. He was invited to compose the Western orchestral version and was being performed at Goldenersaal, Vienna in 2005.

Cheng Dazhao    Impressions of Yungang
Cheng Dazhao is a director of the Chinese Musicians' Association, Vice Chairman of the Guangdong Musicians' Association, a National Class One Composer of Zhujiang Film Studio, Visiting Professor of the Shanxi Drama Vocational Training School and a recipient of the honoured Special Allowance from the State Council of China. Many of his works have won awards in national compositions. The HKCO has performed his Free Imagination about the Yellow River many times around the world and has received raved-reviews.

Marcel Wengler.    The Magic Boat
Marcel Wengler is the President of the Luxembourg Society for Contemporary Music and was the Artistic Director of the World Music Days 2000 in Luxembourg. "An internationally respected, award-winning conductor, is one of Luxemburg classical composers to have made a name outside the tiny country of his birth". (EUROPE - Magazine of the European Union)

Zhu Jianer    A Sorrowful Tune
Zhu Jian'er was presented the ‘Outstanding Contribution Award' at the First Shanghai Literature and the Arts Award in 1991. He is listed in the Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians since 2001. "Written with masterly techniques, a remarkable ethnic style, soul-searching musical ideas and unique presentations, the symphonic works of Mr. Zhu Jian'er have been recognized by the music world as classics in the Chinese symphonic repertoire. Every time I conducted his music, it shook me to the core." (Chen Xieyang, Music Director & Principal Conductor of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra)

Tang Jianping    The Song of Flight
Dr. Tang Jianping is currently a professor and Head of the Department of Composition of Central Conservatory of Music, and supervisor of candidates for doctoral degrees. He was also the first composer to be awarded a Ph.D. in China. The world famous composer Helmet Lachenmann has once said to him, "Your music is even better than that of our Avant-garde composers in Germany or of myself."

Wen Deqing    Traces IV
Wen Deqing is holder of the Prix Cultura 1999 of the Foundation Kiwanis, the 2001 Composer Prize of the Foundation Leenaards of Switzerland and an award from the Government of Geneva. "Traces IV is a very virtuoso piece, with a conception a narrative process full of unpredictable events, energy and mastery." (Renowned French Musicologist and Critic, Philippe Albera)