"Music about China 2" concert will be held on 27 February, 8pm, at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall. This is the annual music extravaganza to explore the boundless realm of modern Chinese orchestral music.

    5 commissioned pieces will be performed in the concert . The programme includes:

    Festivity by Wang Ning. This is a musical panorama of the folk customs around China in celebration of feast days, made up of folk music of the land and presented in a modern idiom. The material taken from the north, south, west and east of China embodies the Chinese goodwill wish of ‘gathering all to share the happiness’;

    Scenes of Rivers Xiao & Xiang by Yang Qing. A splendid acoustic representation of the Flower-drum Opera of Hunan and folk music of the region, the music describes how the people of Hunan have emerged from their struggles with survival and feeling of helplessness to face life with sanguine dynamism;

    Chang’An Symphony by Zhang Hao-fu. The music, with the loess plateau of northwestern China as the background, pays tribute to the generations of Chinese living on that vast, ancient land known as ‘the Yellow Earth’. It captures with insight and poignancy the psyche, soul and internal landscape of the humanity there: when these ‘Northwesterners’ are happy, they move the earth with their shouts, and when they are sad, they tell it with heartrending, weeping sighs;

    Dragon-lantern by Tang Lok-yin. With a solo suona leading and four groups of suona accompanying, the music is inspired by the folk legend related to the Dragon Lantern Festival, when in the olden days, people would light up huge dragon lanterns to invoke the blessings of good luck and happiness, and

    Zulu Gazing at the Rising Sun by Bongani Ndodana-Breen. Inspired by the similarity between some Chinese traditional folk tunes and the traditional melodies of Africa, the South African-born composer uses Chinese instruments and counterpoint to highlight the similarities and differences between the two lands. You’ll be amazed by the musical sparks generated by this gentle meeting of two ancient worlds of sounds.

    Tickets for "Music about China 2" 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.

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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.

Wang Ning
Has studied composition and technical theories under several famous composers and musicologist, including Wang Lin, Zhang Shouming, Hou Cunhui, Wang Shu, Wu Zuqiang etc.. He is currently Head of the Department of Composition, Director of its Multimedia Music Centre and supervisor of Ph.D. candidates at the China Conservatory of Music, a council member of the Chinese Musicians Association, and an executive member of the Chinese Nationalities Orchestra Society. Wang is a prolific composer: his music covers a broad range of subjects that demonstrates his solid training, knowledge, insightful musical thoughts, outstanding character and genuine concern for humanistic issues. His works have been frequently performed in China and in music festivals of the world. Some of his notable compositions include The Drunken Celestial, Duet for Erhu and Orchestra, Guo Feng, Symphony No. 3: Call for the Future, Symphonic Prelude No. 1: New Times, etc..

Yang Qing
Yang Qing graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1983, and is currently on the music faculty of the China Conservatory in Beijing, teaching Composition and Orchestration. He is concurrently Dean of the School of Music of the Capital Normal University in Beijing, where he is also a professor and supervisor of Ph.D. candidates. Yang has written scores of works, with such representative pieces as Cang for dizi and symphony orchestra, Last Rays for erhu and symphony orchestra, Scenes of Rivers Xiao & Xiang - a tone poem for Chinese Orchestra, and Rain•Bamboo for Chinese orchestra. He has won many accolades and awards, and the more recent include an Outstanding Composition Award in 50 Years of the Republic presented by the Chinese Musicians' Association (2000), the Golden Bell Award of the Chinese Musicians' Association (2003), and an Honours Award for Literary Works which was part of the celebrations for the 55^th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China held in Beijing (2004).

Zhang Hao-fu
Zhang Hao-fu was born in the ancient city of Xian in China and developed an interest in music at a very young age. After graduating from the Xian Conservatory of Music with a degree in Composition in 1982, he went to Europe to further his studies and conducted research in modern music composition at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, l'Ecole normale superieure de musique in Paris and at the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique). He was appointed a professor at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels by the Department of Education of Belgium in 1997. Zhang has won many major prizes in international competitions for composers, including the first prize at the 4^th International Composition Competition at Havre in 1990, a laureate at the 13^th International Valentina Bucchi Prize Composition in Rome in the same year, and three composition prizes presented by the Royal Institute for the Study and Conservation of Belgium's Artistic Heritage in 2002 and 2006. In 2007, he was presented with the Prix Darche Freres Award by the Belgian government in honour of his outstanding achievements in composition and was invited to deliver a talk on modern music in Europe and perform at the 2007 Beijing Modern Music Festival.

Tang Lok-yin
Tang Lok-yin graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts with a degree in music in 2003, where she was a student of Law Wing-fai and Clarence Mak. She is currently studying for her doctoral degree in Composition with Chan Wing-wah and Victor Chan at the Chinese University of Hong Kong while working as a part-time lecturer for the centralised scheme of music course at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Tang began her training in piano and suona when she was in primary school, and is therefore well experienced in performance, whether in Hong Kong or overseas. This is conducive to her understanding of instruments and orchestration or instrumentation. She is an active figure in music composition. In 2006, she was awarded a Young Composer Award for her "Volcanicity" at the International Competition for Chinese Orchestral Composition organised by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra. In 2007, her chamber ensemble piece "The Giving Tree II" won the 1^st prize at the Asian Pacific Festival 2007 Young Composer Composition Competition, which was part of the activities of the Asian Composers' League Conference in New Zealand. In June, she was awarded The Outstanding Prize at the "Palatino" Piano Composition Competition in China.

Bongani Ndodana-Breen
Composer and conductor Bongani Ndodana-Breen has written a wide range of music encompassing symphonic work, opera, chamber music and vocal music. According to the New York Times his "delicately made music – airy, spacious, terribly complex but never convoluted – has a lot to teach the Western wizards of metric modulation and layered rhythms about grace and balance." Performers around the world including the Belgian National Orchestra, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Vancouver Opera Orchestra, New York City's Vox Vocal Ensemble, Ensemble Noir, Ensemble Cosi Facciamo Munich, Chicago's Cube Ensemble have performed his music. Ndodana-Breen, currently Artistic Director of Toronto's MuscialNOir/Ensemble Noir, was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for music in 1998, one of South Africa's most prestigious arts prizes.