Have all of you dreamt of flying and soaring in the starry sky?

Since ancient times, the boundless universe has always been a magnet to many people. There are countless artistic works themed on the starry sky, be it fantasies of magic carpet rides or scientific outer space travel.

In this concert, the Music Office Instructors’ Wind Ensemble will lead students to travel through time and space and see the wonders of the universe. The music to be performed include Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity from The Planets by Holst, excerpts from Also Sprach Zarathustra (soundtrack for the film 2001: A Space Odyssey) by Richard Strauss and Kira Kira – Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Variations. Through these well-known pieces of music, students will feel like flying to the sky and fulfilling their dream of wandering in the space.

Some familiar tunes, yet a rare treat to hear, such as Dvořák’s Symphony No.9 From the New World (2nd & 4th Movement), Arnold’s Four Scottish Dances, Schwarz’s Around the World in Eighty Days and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.5 Emperor (1st Movement)…Hong Kong Professional Winds, joined by pianist Jacky Wong, is going to bring the audience to an exotic music tour around the world. During the concert, Dr. Yip Wai-hong and resident conductor Kelvin Ngai Lung-shing will tell you more about wind instruments, music features and arrangements.

Established by renowned music educator Dr. Yip Wai-hong in 2013, Hong Kong Professional Winds is the first professional orchestra of its kind in Hong Kong dedicated to promote the powerful yet tender wind music to the general public. The orchestra brings together local wind virtuosi and has collaborated with eminent pianist Shen Wenyu and violinist Li Chuanyun.

The vast domain and diverse ethnic cultures of mainland China have yielded musical instruments of many timbres and individual characters. For only the two-stringed instrument, the huqin, there are dozens within the family. The performance, Whose Hu?, will introduce the music from eight regions, played on the erhu and its “siblings”, the gaohu, zhonghu, banhu, yehu, tihu, jinghu, sihu, zhuihu, touxian, erxian, zhutiqin, and more. Students can learn more about the indigenous musical culture of these regions.

Percussion music is rich in variety because of the numerous types of instruments used, and is an important component of music. Well-known percussionist Chau Chin-tung will be joined by percussionists to introduce to the audience percussion music from different cultures around the world, including China, Japan, Africa, Brazil and America. They are distinguished by the robust sounds, ethnic colours, huge variety and exuberance in expression.

A graduate of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Chau is currently Principal Percussion of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta and is recognized as a representative percussionist from Hong Kong.

It is hard to miss the “King of the Instruments” once you are inside the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall. With four manuals, 93 stops and 8 000 pipes, the Cultural Centre’s hand-made pipe organ by Austrian manufacturer Rieger Orgelbau is believed to be the largest mechanically operated instrument of its kind in the Southeast Asia.

To expose students to this pipe organ’s amazing power as well as its wide range of sounds and huge variety of tone colours, the Centre has invited two outstanding local organists, Marsha Chow and Gary Tong, to host this education concert. They will illustrate the origin and development, the structure, the comparison with other keyboard instruments, and the different musical styles of pipe organ through live demonstrations with audio-visual displays. The hosts will also demonstrate the beautiful sounds of the pipe organ through lively story-telling to enable students’ better appreciation of organ music and stimulate their interest in this “King of the Instruments”.

Since the 1960s, Hong Kong’s martial arts films have adopted some music of Chinese music ensemble as soundtracks, which gradually became best-known music then. In the 1980s and 1990s, the theme songs of TV martial arts dramas were very popular and were even adapted as music performed by Chinese music ensembles. In this concert, students will be introduced to the instruments commonly used by a Chinese orchestra through a selection of these works.

This year, the Music Office arranges an orchestra for the first time to present to the audience a series of splendid symphonic programmes. In this concert, Chinese composer Wang Xilin’s Fire Torch Festival will be performed as a prelude to depict a joyful singing and dancing scene of Yunnan ethnic minorities by using western orchestral instruments. The orchestra will then perform excerpts from the masterpiece The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra by the English composer Britten and use a rondeau by Henry Purcell as the theme to introduce various sections of the orchestra through instrument classification and different combinations of instruments. Students are cordially invited to attend the concert and enjoy the music of classic orchestral works.

The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra was founded in 1977 and is only professional Chinese Orchestra in Hong Kong. The orchestra has been pursuing its mission of promoting Chinese music. The concert will present both traditional and famous pieces, with guided appreciation and an introduction to the instruments of four sections: bowed-strings, plucked-strings, wind and percussion. Students are also invited to participate interactivity, to learn about the characteristics of Chinese music.

The Music Office has organised the ‘Music for the Millions’ (MFM) Concerts since December 1977, which aims to familiarise students with Chinese and Western orchestral instruments and to stimulate their interest in fine music. During the school year, the Music Office Instructors’ Ensembles give regular MFM Concerts in primary and secondary schools with educational and entertaining programs. Aside from the school tour, we also arrange MFM Concerts at the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) performance venues, which allows students to enjoy the music in a professionally equipped concert hall.