[30th Orchestral Season]

A locally-based orchestra with global visions and values
— the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra
By Chow Fan-fu (Translated by KCL Language Consultancy Ltd)


At the heart of Hong Kong’s business district on Queen’s Road Central, near the Mid-levels Escalator, a gigantic sign took pride of place atop the bustling traffic for one-and-a-half years. Against an eye-catching background of red, white and blue, in the colours of the French tricoleur, these words, ‘Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, the Cultural Ambassador of Hong Kong’ in Chinese and English went right down the middle of the sign. On the left of these words was a photo of the Artistic Director of the HKCO, Yan Huichang, the Orchestra’s logo, and the event title, “The French Connection: The Saint-Denis Arts Festival – The Year of China in France”. On the right was a photo of the Orchestra, and, in smaller print, the names of the cities and famous concert venues the Orchestra had visited around the world. They included Macao, Tokyo, the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall of Singapore, Washington D.C., Taiwan, the Shanghai Opera, San Francisco, the Goldenersaal of Musikverein of Vienna, Beijing, the Sydney Opera House, Xi’an, Amsterdam, Paris, Rotterdam, London, Nanjing, the Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, Deggendorf, Munich, the Orpheum Theatre of Vancouver, and South Korea.

Such a huge ad, at such a spot, and for such a long exposure, would have cost a fortune. It is obvious that it would be beyond the budget of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. Indeed, it was made possible by the generosity of the landlord of that building, who offered this million-dollar advertising spot at no cost to the Orchestra. The gratifying offer had sprung from the sponsor’s recognition of the work of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and its contribution to the community of Hong Kong. In other words, the Orchestra’s diligent efforts since its corporatisation on April 1, 2001, the innumerable overseas touring performances and community activities in Hong Kong, had enhanced its image tremendously. It has reached out to the various sectors of the community and this ad was one of the gratifying returns. It also meant that the Orchestra’s efforts in looking for new resources and support had paid off – an achievement that could not be gauged in monetary terms.

The occasion mentioned in that ad took place in June, 2004. Since then, the Orchestra has visited more places, such as Shanghai and Nanjing (September 2004), Xi’an (April 2005), Beijing (May 2005), Berlin and Prague (October 2004) and Dublin (November 2004). In October 2005, the Orchestra performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and the Lincoln Center in New York. In May 2006, an ensemble led by Henry Tang Ying-yen, Financial Secretary, went on tour to New Zealand and Australia. It was followed by a return visit to London in October, 2006.


Record-breaking events that won the attention of the community
While these overseas tours gave the Orchestra’s tutti interpretations of Chinese music a tinge of ‘universal music’, its activities in Hong Kong have affirmed time and again its local roots. This includes Music from a Thousand Strings in 2001, an event participated by close to 1,000 erhu players who, together, made a Guinness Record of having the largest number of people performing the erhu at the same time. In 2003, under sweltering heat and in the wake of the ravages of the SARS attack, the Orchestra organized a Drum Festival. In the Opening Rally, three thousand people broke another Guinness Record with the largest number of people playing drums on one occasion. The Drum Festival was so successful that it became the first of an annual event welcomed by the community. In 2005, the Orchestra organized the Dizi and Xiao Festival, which again opened with another mass rally of more than five hundred dizi players performing at the same time. It was also included in the Guinness World of Records. In December 2006, Yan Huichang led the Orchestra and over 10,000 people in a mass rally consisting of two groups of drummers on either side of the Victoria Harbour, to mark the opening of the International Festival of Inclusive Arts. It was another Guinness Record event. These social events expanded the Orchestra’s outreach scope and helped it to garner community resources.

Today, the Orchestra not only gives outreach concerts and organizes mass activities to share their music with the citizens of Hong Kong. It also extends its activities to caring for the vulnerable groups in the community. In September 2005, it set up the Music for Love Scheme by giving Chinese music performance in homes for the aged, children’s homes and single-parent centres etc.. Such social commitment won for the HKCO the “Caring Organisation” title from the Hong Kong Council of Social Service in the same year.

To promote Chinese music further, the Orchestra has been expanding its discography, which includes live recordings of its concerts, studio recordings in CD, VCD and DVD formats. It also launched the world’s first ever SACD recording of a live concert by a Chinese orchestra in 2003. The Orchestra has scored for many award-winning films, including Warriors of Heaven and Earth and Kung Fu Hustle. To further enhance appreciation and enjoyment of Chinese music, the Orchestra has been actively publishing books on the subject. The titles published to date include The Enjoyment of Chinese Orchestral Music and A Handbook to Appreciating Chinese Orchestral Music.

On the management front, the Orchestra has also won many honours and awards. In 2004, the Council of the Orchestra was awarded ‘Directors of the Year – Statutory/Non-profit-distributing Organisation Board’ by the Hong Kong Institute of Directors for their achievement in corporate governance. The 2003-2004 Annual Report of the Orchestra was awarded ‘2004 Best Corporate Governance Disclosure Awards – Gold Award of Public Sector/Not-for-profit Category’ by the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants. It was followed by the ‘28th Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Award – The Golden Needle Award’ presented by Radio Television Hong Kong in 2005, in recognition of the Orchestra’ long-term support of the Chinese golden hits in music.

These accolades are an affirmation of the Orchestra’s social commitments. These activities have enjoyed wide coverage on the mass media and therefore brought the attention of various sectors. But they are only part of the Orchestra’s contribution to the Hong Kong community throughout its thirty years of history. Its achievements and successes may not be known by the concertgoers, but they are nonetheless an important – though often overlooked – part of the Orchestra’s history in Hong Kong.


Continuous enhancement and honing of the orchestral format led to an escalation of the Orchestra's artistic dynamic

Let us start with the Orchestra’s achievements on stage.

Today, the HKCO on stage is a full-sized ethnic music ensemble of eighty-five pieces. Such an orchestral format is a result of their continuous enhancement and honing in the last thirty years. This also marks a vital attainment for the ensemble to have become an orchestra of such a large scale through prolonged experimentation and practice for the escalation of its artistic dynamic. This format precluded the use of the cello and double bass from day one, because the founding Music Director, Ng Tai-kong, was convinced that the gehu and bass gehu would, if played reasonably well, achieve similar, desired effects to enrich the background of Chinese music. As all instruments were of a Chinese ethnic origin, they offered an aesthetic uniformity in their outlooks and a harmony of tone colours in their sounds. They were therefore pleasing both for the eye and the ear, and appealed to the audience with this overall effect. Although the orchestral disposition may have changed over the years, with the number of pieces and the configuration varying according to different Music Directors, the general framework remains more or less the same. There is a satisfactory balance in volume as well as in tonal harmony.


Introducing modern compositional techniques and establishing the commissioning system to encourage new compositions

However, after the Orchestra turned professional, there was a lack of full-length works with commensurate standards. It was a time when music composition was at an ‘anaemic’ stage and efforts to compose Chinese ensemble works were close to none. During the planning stage of turning the Orchestra into a professional group, Ng Tai-kong already pointed out the danger of the lack of a compatible repertoire for an orchestra of this size: without the provision of such works, the Orchestra simply could not live long. To resolve this critical problem, the HKCO began inviting new works in its second professional season. A new system whereby composers would be commissioned each year to write or arrange new works was established. The adventurous spirit of the HKCO in performing new works has in turn livened up the music composition environment in Hong Kong in the last thirty years, making visible contributions, both direct and indirect, to the industry. Composers who were commissioned by the Orchestra were not limited to Hong Kong. There were also composers on the Mainland, in Taiwan, and in other parts of the world, who joined in the creative force of writing music for not only the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra but also full-sized Chinese orchestras in general.

The Orchestra’s most important influential move in terms of Chinese music composition began with the first and second Music Directors, Ng Tai-kong and Kuan Nai-chung. They joined hands with many composers to introduce into their works modern composition elements like perspectives, concepts and techniques. This broadened the dimensions and artistic dynamic of ethnic music. These works premiered by the HKCO no longer confined themselves to the composition modes of the European Classical and Romantic schools. Indeed, many are highly creative and experimental. Technique-wise, they are free from the manipulation of the European major and minor harmonies. The western concepts of harmony would fail to contain them, and in fact, it is not their wish to stay within collective harmony and uniformity. They would explore uniqueness in different musical instruments and colour changes in different mixes of musical instruments. These commissioned works now number more than 1,700. Though their standards vary, many of them have been featured for performance by ethnic music orchestras on the Mainland as well as overseas. They include Doming Lam’s The Insect World, Ng Tai-kong’s Chance Encounter and Chen Ming-chi’s Jing. Qi. Shen., which were selected for performance at different sessions of the International Rostrum of Composers. They make up an important part of the music culture and history of Hong Kong, and an achievement testifying to the Orchestra’s focused attempts at grooming local talents for a local audience. The ISCM World Music Days 2002 Hong Kong presented the Orchestra with the award for ‘The Most Outstanding Achievement in Advancing Contemporary Chinese Music’ in recognition of its sustainable efforts in promoting music composition.


Symphonisation as the major artistic direction with diversification for a wider scope of influence

We can see from the works performed by the HKCO in the last thirty years that ‘symphonisation’ has undoubtedly been the chosen direction towards which the Orchestra is moving. Apart from imitating the format of the western orchestra and the harmonious and unharmonious sounds of the European orchestras, the Orchestra has demonstrated a diversified and varied array of colours and effects through the performance of new works which have accumulated through sheer creativity and the willingness to try.

Yet this ‘symphonisation’ road sign has not limited the Orchestra’s spirit to explore the presentation possibilities. The variety is therefore huge. Throughout the last thirty years, the Orchestra has performed in highly imaginative staging and productions. It has collaborated with choirs and children’s choirs in large-scale choral concerts, accompanied dance companies, participated in large-scale dance drama productions, recorded the music for drama productions, performed in a multimedia format with video projection, calligraphy and painting, and even introduced floral fragrances at concerts. The Orchestra has joined hands with pop singers, Cantonese opera artists, vocalists, cellists, pianists and violinists in performances and has also commissioned theatrical productions such as the folk opera Parting at River Yi, the urban musical Tales of the Walled City, The Legend of Love, Cantonese opera dance music The Fairy of the Ninth Heaven and the mini-musical for the family, Come and Eat!. These unconventional cross-disciplinary performances have enhanced the influence of the Chinese orchestra and motivated more musicians and artists to contribute their part in the development of Chinese music.


New perspectives acquired through guest conductors empowered the Orchestra to play a varied repertoire and new works

Starting from the second season, the HKCO introduced a guest conductor system which was quite a norm for professional orchestras in Europe and America. It was a trend-setting move among Chinese orchestras on the Mainland and overseas at that time.

The setting up of this guest conductor system was to have a great impact on the HKCO. After years of training under the respective Music Directors and the many guest conductors (many of whom came from the Western orchestra tradition), and after collaborating with performing artists and composers of different styles, the Orchestra was able to come into its own. Renowned veteran conductor Yan Liangkun commended the Orchestra’s performance after a collaboration. He said,

“Throughout the rehearsals, I was impressed by the Orchestra’s adaptability and amicable cooperation with the conductor. Though the rehearsal piece was a full-scale one and new to them, they were able to form a framework even after the first rehearsal, demonstrating their solid groundwork. …… they adapted extremely well, showing the quality and standard a professional symphonic orchestra should possess. They had a sensitive rapport with the conductor and not too many words were needed to explain to them what they need to do, as they could understand the conductor’s wishes through reading his signs and mutual communication could be achieved.”

It can therefore be said that the HKCO, as it is today, has reached a higher plane, in terms of its mastery of performance skills, understanding of the music and collaboration with the conductors. The expansive expressiveness of the Orchestra has also become superior to other orchestras in the genre, making it something like a role model.


Worldwide tours give the Orchestra headway among its peers
Led by its generations of Music Directors, the HKCO has toured widely in the Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas, bringing Chinese music of a high standard to countries of different cultures and fulfilling the function of a music ambassador. Its achievements have been widely recognized.

Of all the overseas tours, the one largest in scale took place in September 1982. The Orchestra, together with the Hong Kong Dance Company, formed an overseas delegation of more than one hundred members to participate in the Arts Festival of the British Commonwealth Games in Australia. It gave a concert at the Sydney Opera House, which was the grandest and the first ever ethnic music event to be staged at the venue since its inauguration. A Sydney Daily review reads:

"Exotic Chinese musical instruments, Oriental colours of great appeal, and musicians in blue cheongsams and white trousers were indeed pleasing to the eye, but the most important thing, however, was in the brilliant performance of the Chinese Orchestra. Even those who were unfamiliar with the traditions and intricacies of oriental music would appreciate its nuances."

It was obvious that Chinese musical instruments remained alien to an overseas audience. They might attend an HKCO concert to satisfy their curiosity and to scout for elements of novelty. But in February 2002, when the HKCO was invited to tour Germany and Austria, I had the opportunity to witness memorable moments during the Orchestra's concerts at the world-famous Goldenersaal in Vienna, at the Stadthalle of Deggendorf in Germany and at the Herkulessaal of the Municipal Government in Munich. What I saw changed my views towards a western audience attending ethnic orchestral concerts.

What struck me most on that occasion was not that the HKCO had the honour to perform at such a distinguished venue as the Goldenersaal in Vienna; nor the fact that this was the place where Karajan, Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa et al had stood and conducted – the HKCO was already a name in itself, after so many years of hard work and achievements. Neither was I impressed by the sense of occasion as reflected in the way the concertgoers dressed, the gathering of celebrities and community leaders…. What struck me most was the wholehearted attention from the mature audience. Their applause at the end of each piece was warm and thundering, and came straight from the heart, not out of courtesy. The musicians on stage were obviously touched by their warmth and the knowledge of good music being shared. They threw their heart and soul into their performance. In the end, Yan Huichang had to answer eight curtain calls and give three encores before the audience let them go! Another similar occasion was in October 2005. The HKCO was performing a Festival of China Concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., followed by another concert at the Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center in New York. The tremendous rapport of good music being shared almost brought the house down. In the recent concert at the Xinghai Concert Hall in Guangzhou, the programme included many of the most popular symphonic works that were performed in Europe and America in recent years.

Such a warm reception of a Chinese orchestra of ethnic music in a world where Western music is the mainstream genre is apocalyptic in many ways. For one thing, it has to do with the organiser’s high-powered and effective marketing and audience-building strategies; but for the other, what we need to contemplate is that since the touring repertoires of the HKCO comprised mostly symphonic works, would it mean that to an audience that has been brought up in a world of symphonic sounds, ethnic music with symphonic arrangements would be the universal language? Is the warm reception of the HKCO on tour a proof that ethnic symphonic music can now enter the international market? Yan Huichang has talked about "a global artistic positioning". Will the response of the audiences in the West encourage the Orchestra to make more ambitious advances?


A global standing that comes from the marriage of the traditional and the modern
The Orchestra is clearly aware of that fact that its global standing was built on its legacy of merging the traditional and the modern. That is why the Orchestra has recently set up the Folk Music Ensemble, Chamber Music Groups and the Instrument Study Group to strengthen the research and development of traditional and modern Chinese music by various approaches, and to improve the instruments so as to achieve better sound qualities.

On the other hand, the HKCO has organized many activities in tandem with such work. They include an International Seminar on Retrospect and Development of Modern Chinese Orchestra in 1997; The International Competition for Chinese Orchestral Composition 2000 and Chinese Orchestral Composition Symposium which promoted Chinese orchestral compositions and explored the acoustic effects through different configuration layouts; and another seminar series On the Ecology of Chinese Music in a Modern Environment and Its Future Developments to tie in with the worldwide poll for Golden Chinese Classics of the Century in 2002. These activities concluded with the publication of the papers presented on the occasion, which formed a valuable archive of important academic studies of the development of ethnic music.

As the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra celebrates its 30^th Anniversary and moves on to its second thirty-year cycle, it will continue to uphold its stance as a locally-based orchestra with global visions and values. Would this blaze any trail or be an inspiration for the many Chinese orchestras in the field today?