City of dreams

A grand concert, featuring new music composed specially to

celebrate 20 years of the founding of the HKSAR, is coming up next week. Chitralekha Basu has the details.

It's probably not a matter of coincidence that Maestro Mak Ka-lok decided to bookend the upcoming Hong Kong Dream concert with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and the fifth movement from the Long March Symphony by Ding Shande. Both compositions are inspired by momentous events in history which saw the rise of the underdogs. While the first, composed in 1882, was an ode to the Russian resistance of Napoleon's Imperial project, the latter is a paean to the extraordinary tenacity and determination displayed by the Chinese Red Army when they marched across 9,000 kilometers of some of the country's most hostile landscapes in 1934-35 to avoid arrest by the forces of the mighty Kuomintang.

Mak, who would be conducting a China Daily Hong Kong-hosted concert to mark the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Hong Kong SAR, due on next Wednesday, believes little people with big dreams could make things happen. His own dream was to create an orchestra comprising Hong Kong's classical music performers - give the city's trained professional musicians a platform. It's the reason Mak quit a 35-year-old illustrious career of conducting orchestras in Germany, Austria and Russia and came back to live in his hometown. Global Symphony Orchestra, comprising 95 percent Hong Kong natives, was founded five years ago and has already accumulated a solid body of work and international shows.

Mak is hoping the music presented on the night of May 31 would inspire at least a few in the audience to think seriously about working toward a common dream - that of building an inclusive, forward-looking, welfare-oriented Hong Kong. During his stay in Russia, Mak would be moved by the strong patriotic sentiments the people there seemed to believe in. He believes it is possible to generate similar feelings even in the so-called materialistic Hong Kong.

"Through music we could strengthen people's thinking about who we are, the current state we are in and the way forward for us. Today we must have very strong will power to win a great future for the people of China," he says.

He had felt a sense of pride and confidence well up inside him at the historic moment of Hong Kong's reunification with the nation 20 years back. On May 31, as he picks up his baton, directing the orchestra to strike the opening bars of Hong Kong Dream, a piece Mak has composed specially for the concert, he will probably feel a tinge of satisfaction at having taken his personal Hong Kong dream forward by a few steps since he returned to his hometown with a determination to bring Western classical music into the mainstream of Hong Kong's preferred music.

"I dream about Hong Kong reaching a state when every citizen is prosperous and happy, and musicians are making a meaningful contribution to society," says Mak.

Canto pop favorites

Otto Kwan, who leads the viola section in the orchestra, is particularly excited about a new piece composed by Mak as homage to the Cantonese pop music scene in its heydays, from the Seventies to the Nineties. Kwan, who, like Mak, returned after several years of training and living abroad, says he can't seem to get enough of the fresh music composed around old favorites such as Under the Lion Rock, sung by Roman Tam in 1979. "It's the music we grew up with. It's something people can recognize instantly. I feel very warm playing the tune," he says.

Another highlight from the upcoming evening of music that might be particularly meaningful for the Chinese-speaking members in the audience is The Legend of the Phoenix. Based on a poem written by Raymond Young, the four-part composition - to be sung by Samantha Chong (soprano) and Jing Jiang (tenor) - charts the journey of the mythical bird pair through struggle, death and rebirth.

"The figure of the phoenix aligns closely with the spirit of the Chinese people," says Mak, who has set the lyric poem to music, traditional Chinese-style. "We have experienced a lot of difficulties. Getting singed and being reborn from the ashes with a new life and prosperity is in our tradition."

"It is a very complete piece, with all four sections clearly delineated," says Ng Bo-yee who plays the trombone. "Even if you're not much of a classical music person, you can still listen to the songs and follow the story."

The composition is also a favorite of her colleague Jason Fung, a base trombone player. "I find the fire dances part highly inspiring," he says, visibly taken by the energy of the rousing music. "It ties up with our Chinese culture. We have to burn ourselves to be able to renew," he adds.

Ng's own Hong Kong dream is to see a day when the city acknowledges the roles played by its classical music practitioners in enhancing its cultural wealth more determinedly. Most musicians who play for the orchestra work freelance. Gigs are infrequent and the pay is often not adequate to support a lifestyle that lends itself to a single-minded focus on one's craft.

"We all studied abroad and came back here because Hong Kong is our home," says Ng. "It'd be a sad thing if we cannot continue to play music here because we cannot afford the expenses."

Drawing attention to the way professional orchestras in the different provinces of the Chinese mainland recruit mostly from a local pool of musicians, Ng and her fellow players performing for Global Symphony Orchestra feel Hong Kong might consider following a similar model, or, at least ensure that talented local musicians find a support to fall back on when the gigs are a bit slow in coming.

"Being a professional musician is still not looked upon with the respect that it deserves in Hong Kong, unfortunately," remarks pianist Aliena Wong, who will play the Ode to the Yellow River, which is fraught with strong sentiments of pride in the national heritage.

Even as HKSAR gets into celebration mode for its 20th, showing a little more love for the city's young artistes - the inheritors of the nation's cultural legacy - could only add to the music.

Contact the writer at

basu@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 05/26/2017 page1)