Cadenza of Hong Kong
The Hong Kong Composers' Guild is currently having a collaboration project with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra called Cadenza of Hong Kong, with the aim to mobilize as many Hong Kong composers as possible to write new works to be premiered by HKCO during the 30th and 31st orchestral seasons, as part of the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. The Press Conference of this event was held on 17th June 2006. The key message was that the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and Hong Kong Composers are very keen to preserve, promote and explore the rich cultural resources of Hong Kong, and we also want to strengthen Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra's role as the Cultural Ambassador of Hong Kong.

The "Cadenza of Hong Kong" project has 3 parts:

Part I - Nineteen New Compositions

With the title "Cadenza of Hong Kong", this project aims to promote artistic virtuosity, as in the Cadenza di bravura in Western classical music, and unique expression on the versatility of Hong Kong in either social, cultural, personal, scenic or geographic terms. Although the duration of each piece shall be within 3 to 6 minutes, we encourage innovation in performance format, instrumentation as well as composition approach. The premieres of these commissioned works will be spread out in different concerts of the 2 orchestral seasons, with each work being the first in a programme. Nineteen Hong Kong composers have been commissioned. So far, as on 29th March 2007, four pieces have been premiered by the orchestra. Part of the commission fees is sponsored by CASH Music Fund.

Part II - Field Trips

In order to strengthen the compositional relevance of the Hong Kong subjects, some local tours to attractive scenery and culturally significant places of the territories will be arranged. Secondly, field trips to selected rural areas, villages, towns or institutions in Guangdong province will be organized. Realizing Hong Kong has its cultural root strongly tied with the region, we will attend the performances given by the locals and try to get inspiration from them as well as promote meaningful musical dialogues for future collaboration.

There are 3 genealogical groups in Guangdong province: the Guangdong group in the central part, especially Pearl River Delta who speak Cantonese; the Chaozhou-shantou group in the eastern shore; and the Hakka group in the north-eastern part of today's Zhejiang, Fujian and Weizhou region. The folk music of the three have their individual traits. Our visit to the two non-Cantonese areas may help us find roots and inspiration for writing music.

The first of such field trip, visiting the Chaozhou-Shantou area, has been organized on 23rd-25th June 2006. Approximately 2 dozens composers and students joined the trip with the staff of HKCO. The second field trip, visiting the Hakka region - Shenzhen & Huizhou took place on 17th-19th November 2006. It was also attended by a number of composers, students and HKCO staff.

Part III - Tailor-made Workshops on Chinese Orchestration for Composers

In order to promote creative, idiomatic writing for the Chinese orchestra, a series of tailor-made orchestration workshops on Chinese orchestra for composers will be held in April - May 2007. The Guild will design the contents. For examples, demonstrations by individual instruments on their unique characteristics or different dynamics & timbre on different tessitura; balancing experimentation in terms of dynamics or chord spacing; combination of different tone colours; trying out different arrangements (on the same given tune/materials) by the composers, etc. The Guild has called for suggestions/excerpts/arrangements from the member composers. The workshops may open to the general public as well.

Workshop 1 - Demonstration

16th April 2007 (Mon), 2 p.m., HKCO's rehearsal venue in 7/F. Sheung Wan Complex

Part 1
     - Individual musicians will demonstrate 5 different sound levels (from extremely soft to extremely loud) on the low, middle and high registers on the following instruments, respectively: qudi, soprano sheng, soprano suona, bass guan, liuqin, yangqin, pipa, zhongruan, sanxian, gaohu, erhu and zhonghu. The examples are produced by Dr. Lai Sheung-ping.

     - Individual musicians will demonstrate various pitch-sliding effects on the following instruments, respectively: bangdi, soprano sheng, alto suona, pipa, zhongruan, sanxian, zheng and erhu. The examples are produced by Tsang Yiu-Kwan.

     - Individual musicians will demonstrate the fastest rhythmic possibility on the following instruments, respectively: bangdi, alto sheng, bass suona, liuqin, dairuan, zheng and zhonghu. The Examples are produced by Dr. Joyce Tang.

Part 2
Demonstration of noise effects and special techniques by individual musicians.

Part 3
At least 5 different settings of the same chords (with different spacing, tessitura, doubling) will be played by the strings, plucked-strings, winds, respectively, with different dynamic markings. Chords to use include, e.g., C major, D minor, G major, etc. Some of the chords may require tremolo or fluttertonguing. The examples are produced by Dr. Lo Hau-man.

Part 4
A given melody will be played, respectively, on a number of instruments with different transpositions and octaves so as to suit the instruments best. At least 2 different accompaniment versions using different instruments will be played again each of these melody statements. Workshop participants are to find out which versions have the best balance. The examples and arrangements are produced by Hui Cheung-wai.

Part 5
Requests to demonstrate certain passages of existing repertoire on a given instrument will also be welcome and entertained.

Workshop 2 - Percussion

19th April 2007 (Thu), 2 p.m., 7/F. Sheung Wan Complex

The percussion musicians will demonstrate all major instruments of Chinese percussion one by one. Some traditional ensemble patterns will be performed as well. Hong Kong Composers' Guild will prepare a number of short segments of percussion ensemble and have the musicians to try them out and comment upon.

Part of the content will be prepared by HKCO, while the rest will be a number of short segments provided by HK Composers' Guild.

A Question-&-Answer segment may be included.

Workshop 3 - Try-out season

28th-29th May 2007 (Mon & Tue), 2 p.m., 7/F. Sheung Wan Complex

A short piece (for example, Lan Hwa Hwa) having a simple melody and accompaniment outline will be written (by HK Composers Guild) on a piano-reduction-like sheet. It will be distributed to those composers who are interested to attend the workshop well in advance. The composers are expected to orchestrate this short piece for HKCO and have the scores and parts sent to HKCO by 4th May (Fri). During the workshop, each composer's orchestration will be tried out by the orchestra. Comments will be given by the conductor, musicians and fellow composers. Probably we have time to try out ten pieces only.