Serie: 2019/20
Beare’s Premiere Music Festival – Play along Bach with Borromeo String Quartet
Play along Bach with Borromeo String Quartet is a special education concert featuring participating musicians in the Beare’s Premiere Music Festival 2020. The Well-Tempered Clavier by J.S. Bach is a set of pieces that have inspired more great composers than perhaps any other music. Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin and Bartok all studied these pieces every day because they combine incredible musical spirit with the deepest knowledge of how to combine pitches together.
The Borromeo String Quartet plays all of the Well-Tempered Clavier of Bach in arrangements made for string quartet by first violinist Nicholas Kitchen. In this special program, the Borromeo will perform and explain some of the remarkable features of these pieces. They will also project the music scores onto a big screen and will invite performers in the audience to join them in playing and studying these pieces together. The magic of making the spirit of the music come alive all together will allow everyone to enter this elaborate and inspiring music world of Bach.
The Borromeo Quartet is the quartet-in-residence at the New England Conservatory of Music and the winner of numerous international awards and competitions including the Avery Fisher Career Grant (New York) and first place at the International String Quartet Competition (Evian, France). Recently celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Borromeo continues to be a pioneer in its use of technology, and has the trailblazing distinction of being the first string quartet to utilize laptop computers on the concert stage.
The views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent the stand of the Council.
Experiment Naamyam Hong Kong – Blind Musician Dou Wun (Student Matinee)
Male singers of Deishui Naamyam are called gu si (blind songster). Born in 1910, Dou Wun began learning Naamyam in the early 1920s. When the civil war broke out, he moved from Guangzhou to Hong Kong, where he earned his living by singing. Dou improvised his singing on current affairs topics in the RTHK radio programme Dou Wun’s Naamyam in the 1950s. In the 1970s, Naamyam went downhill and became a lost art amidst the prevalence of European and western music. In 1975, Professor Bell Yung came to Hong Kong to make recordings of Dou’s performance. To fully reflect the artistic merits of Dou and to be truthful to the originality of Naamyam, Yung made the live recordings in Fu Loong Teahouse. The outcomes became a treasure. In 2019, Zuni restores the recordings of Dou using audio and imaging technologies of the theatre to relive the audio-visual space of Deishui Naamyam.
The views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent the stand of the Council.
“Midsummer Snow over the Injustice to Dou Ngor” Pre-performance Talk and Performance
Based on The Injustice to Dou Ngor by Guan Hanqing, the play is injected with new perspectives and elements. While participants work in groups to incorporate modern scenarios into ancient plotlines, the theatrical company complemented with its uniquely stylish drama art to re-create Midsummer Snow over the Injustice to Dou Ngor.
Pre-performance Workshop
Through pre-performance workshop, students will be able to:
Learn about the playwright and his plays
Understand the perspectives and methods for appreciating and analysing theatrical arts
Explore re-enacted classics and the issues faced by and contemplated by the contemporary society
The views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent the stand of the Council.
“Pride and Prejudice” Performance cum Post-performance Discussion and Post-performance Interactive Drama Workshop
First Impressions are Unreliable, yet True Love is Irresistible.
First impressions are about pride, prejudice, or the red thread of fate secretly tied by Yue Lao?
Back to Hong Kong in the 1950s, four young and charming daughters of the well-off middle class Pak family live with their parents in Happy Valley. The mother is eager to marry off her four daughters to wealthy families, in a hope to change their destinies by marriage.
But Ka-wai, the second daughter of the Pak family, who is confident, intelligent, independent and well-educated, does not agree with these values. She thinks that love, instead of class and wealth, is the foundation of marriage.
At a grand party, Ka-wai meets the handsome Mr Tat-chi, who has completed his studies in Britain. The enchanting party setting is conducive to romantic love and they seem a perfect match… Instead, the first encounter is a hard crash. Tat-chi is overly proud of his social status and Ka-wai takes an instant dislike to the arrogant heir of a wealthy and prominent family. Will the poor first impressions break their red thread of fate?
The views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent the stand of the Council.
“All My Life I Shall Remember” Performance cum Post-performance Discussion and Post-performance Interactive Drama Workshop
Though living in difficult times, Chen Gexin, Chinese “Immortal Songwriter” who had written many reputable songs like Rose, Rose, I Love You, Gong Xi Gong Xi, Shanghai Nights in the 1930s and the 1940s, had a lifelong pursuit of cheering up the hardworking ordinary people through songs. He had been imprisoned by the Imperial Japanese Army and the Kuomintang authorities, and later, jailed for “reform through labour” in the late 1950s. He was unable to see how his son, Chen Gang, succeeded in his music career before his death.
Though his life was short and eventful, his music continues to spread wide. Based on real-life events All My life I Shall Remember features popular artiste Jason Chan and renowned pianist & performer Phoebus Chan. The creative team interviewed famous pianist and co-composer of violin concerto The Butterfly Lovers Chen Gang, who will join the creative team as Music Director to reconstruct the touching life of his late father Chen Gexin on stage.
The views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent the stand of the Council.
“Speaking in Tongues” Performance cum Post-performance Discussion
The play starts off with two couples embroiled in extra-marital affairs. A high-heeled shoe in the bushes, a therapy session, a few phone messages and numerous love letters trace the overlapping relationships and conflicting emotional associations entangling nine characters. Loneliness and marital bonds are overwhelmed by the thrill to connect intimately with a stranger. Why are we so ill-equipped to speak of love? Despite our best efforts in expressing our emotions, words often fail to communicate what is lodged deep in our hearts.
Post-performance Discussion
Led by main creative artists, the post-performance discussion focuses on students’ immediate experience of appreciation, aimed to inspire autonomous thinking and interactive discussion among students.
The views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent the stand of the Council.
“L’Amour Immortel” Performance cum Meet-the-Artists Session by Hong Kong Dance Company
This love story originates from one of the Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio written by Pu Songling. It was adapted into the Hong Kong blockbuster movie A Chinese Ghost Story in the 1980s, and has taken on yet another incarnation as the grand dance drama L’Amour Im – mortel .
Nie Xiaoqian, an alluring ghost, is enslaved by a sinister demon and forced to prey on humans. When she meets and falls head-overheels in love with the honest and good-natured Ning Caichen, she becomes determined to save him from evil forces, even at the cost of her own afterlife. In L’Amour Im – mortel, the timeless classic is filled with new spirit by the performers’ physical expression. It captures the essence of the most beautiful human values in a poignant ghost story that will touch many hearts in this broken world.
“Life is a dream in which laughter and tears meet.”
Meet-the-Artists Session
After the performance, the students may interact directly with the creative team and performers to learn more about artistic creation and the creative process of the show.
The views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent the stand of the Council.
Make Hong Kong Better (Student Performance)
The views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent the stand of the Council.
The Ward (Student Matinee)
Losing is more palpable than having
When Sai Hing sinks into a coma after an accident, his fiancée Tung’s life seems perpetually trapped in the hospital ward.
For thirty years, all of Tung’s visits accumulate into an overflow of memories.
Is the ward his or her destiny?
The views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent the stand of the Council.
“Limits” by Cirkus Cirkör [Sweden] (Student Matinee)
Tigers jumping through flaming hoops, bears walking on hind legs… Traditional circus, as we know it, tries to entertain and amuse by stimulating our senses. Cirkus Cirkör – the latter a play on the French words “cirque” (circus) and “coeur” (heart) – sets out to innovate with a big heart, as seen in their multimedia circus production Limits for this year’s World Cultures Festival – The Nordics.
Today as the European countries are quickly closing their borders to curb the influx of refugees, Cirkus Cirkör perceives their native Sweden and even the USA as an acrobat’s body, which could become more flexible through vigorous training. Be sure not to miss Limits, a creative discourse on the body politic and humanitarian work from a fresh and little-known angle.
The views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent the stand of the Council.