"The HKCO Virtuosi– Wong Chi Ching" concert will be held on 14 July, at 8pm, at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall.

    Wong Chi-ching, currently Section Leader of Plucked-strings and Pipa Principal with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, is an active concert artist in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and has toured the Philippines, the UK, Russia and Canada. In 2005, she was part of the Hong Kong Delegation to the Chinese New Music Festival in Canada. Everywhere she went, she received critical acclaim for her performance.

    For the upcoming concert, she will be performing with the Orchestra different classics for pipa and Chinese orchestra: Autumn Moon in Han Palace, Snow in Springtime (arranged by Law Wing-fai), Three Ancient Tunes of Yingzhou (arranged by Peng Xiuwen) and King Chu Doffs His Armour. Rounding up the programme is the third movement of In Remembrance of Yunnan, a zhongruan concerto written by the very talented composer, Liu Xing. Such a programme is designed to take the audience back in time to revisit the many splendours of the classical past and catch a glimpse of the evolution down the ages. The idiosyncratic touch of Wong Chi-ching on the pipa will recall the glories of ancient China, reveal the abstract aspects of the East, and continue to tell the story of a world of everlasting beauty.

    Tickets for "The HKCO Virtuosi– Wong Chi Ching" concert are now available at all URBTIX Outlets at $220, 150 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

Wong Chi-ching    Pipa
Wong Chi-ching entered the China Broadcast Chinese Orchestra in 1976 and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra in 1987 where she is currently the Section Leader of Plucked-strings and Pipa Principal. Wong is a keen supporter of modern music, and has given premieres of works for solo pipa at international music festivals, the ISCM World Music Days, and with various dance companies.

Some of her notable appearances include performing When Mountains Roar for Chinese-Western orchestra with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in 1997, followed by a collaboration with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta at Saint-Riquier Festival in France in 2001. In 2002, she performed Concerto for Pipa and String Orchestra by Tan Dun at the New Vision Arts Festival in Hong Kong, under the baton of the composer himself. In September 2003, she went to Japan to perform A Thousand Sweeps with the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra. It was followed by repeat performances of Law Wing-fai's pipa concerto, Flowing Fancies, with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in 2003 and 2004. In 2005, she was part of the Hong Kong delegation to Canada to perform in the Chinese New Music Festival.