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China’s Communist Party turns 100
LifestyleArts & Culture

Concert celebrating Chinese Communist Party’s centenary to show Hong Kong’s ‘unique’ blend of East and West

  • The Hong Kong String Orchestra and violinist Yao Jue, its founder, will perform a variety of Chinese and Western music to honour Hong Kong’s diversity
  • The ‘Centennial and HKSAR Establishment Celebration Concert’ takes place at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall on June 13

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Yao Jue, violinist and founder of the Hong Kong String Orchestra which will give a concert of Chinese and Western music to celebrate the Chinese Communist Party’s centenary and the city’s rich diversity. Photo: Courtesy of Hong Kong String Orchestra
Regina Chen

A mainland China-born, Julliard-trained violin virtuoso who has lived in Hong Kong for a quarter of a century hopes to send a message about the city’s diversity through music when the string orchestra she founded eight years ago gives a celebratory concert featuring a variety of influences.

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Yao Jue, 56, won first prize in the Chinese National Violin Competition at the age of 16 and received a full scholarship to study in the United States, first at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, then at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1997, the year China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong was restored, the Shanghai native settled in Hong Kong with her husband, the son of Lu Ping, the late director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office under China’s State Council.

Since Hong Kong is her home, she wants to celebrate the place that has made her life “full” through the concert on June 13 – which will mark this year’s centenary of the Chinese Communist Party’s founding and the anniversary of the British handover of the city to China – by showing Hong Kong’s “unique” blend of East and West, she says. Yao will perform as a soloist on her treasured 1713 Stradivarius violin.

“I developed my vision and discovered the purpose of my life in Hong Kong,” says Yao, a member of the council of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and of the Hong Kong Arts Festival committee.

Yao, 56, won first prize at the Chinese National Violin Competition at the age of 16. Photo: Courtesy of Hong Kong String Orchestra
Yao, 56, won first prize at the Chinese National Violin Competition at the age of 16. Photo: Courtesy of Hong Kong String Orchestra
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The Hong Kong String Orchestra concert will give the local premiere of Joshua Chan Kam-biu’s Cantonese Pop Song Medley. Despite being a classically trained musician, Yao admits that Canto-pop has been a great personal influence, and says she hopes hearing the piece will remind audience members of Hong Kong’s “Lion Rock spirit” and that they will work together to make the city a better place.

Another work featured in the programme is Chinese Folk Song (2002) by Zhou Long. Zhou has lived in the US for a long time but Yao sees in his work a reminder of the importance of one’s own culture. “Without it, we are lost,” she says.

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