Avant-garde composer Tan Dun and the National Ballet's former chief conductor Bian Zushan once debated on television about the concepts of music. The heated debate showed Tan and Bian, representing two generations of Chinese musicians, to hold totally different opinions towards music.

However, both agree on the importance of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra.

Tan praised the orchestra as having "excellent musicality, popularity and managerial competence", while Bian said he was "most impressed by the orchestra's high quality of performance and commitment to the development of arts".

The Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra held two concerts at the National Center for the Performing Arts last month, showcasing commissioned works, such as Ambush from All Sides (Shimian Maifu), a rearrangement of an ancient melody, Hong Kong composer Doming Lam's experimental The Insect World and Chinese composer Cheng Dazhao's Concerto for Orchestra, which integrates an organ with traditional Chinese instruments.

Under the baton of Yan Huichang, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra performed two concerts in Beijing in January. (photo: China Daily)

"The most important characteristic of our orchestra is its diversity," says Yan Huichang, the orchestra's artistic director and principal conductor. "We can play anything from the most traditional to the most avant-garde music."

Founded in 1977, the orchestra boasts a repertoire of more than 1,700 commissioned works, one of the largest in the world.

"Works are the most important for an orchestra of Chinese instruments. For a Western orchestra there is a tremendous repertory, but for Chinese orchestras there are still not many works to choose from," says Li Xi'an, a professor of composition at the China Conservatory of Music.

In its second professional season, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra established a system to commission composers to write or arrange new works every year. These include composers from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, and other parts of the world.

Traditionally, Chinese ensemble music is mostly played in small groups. It was only in the 20th century that big orchestras of Chinese instruments began to emerge. The 85-piece Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra is structured like a Western orchestra, with sessions of the blown, stringed and percussive instruments. Main instruments include pipa (four-stringed plucked instrument), erhu (two-stringed bowed instrument) and dizi (bamboo flute).

"The harmonious sound produced by the Chinese instruments of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra gives composers like me strong impulses to compose Chinese orchestral music," says Guo Wenjing, whose A Va Mountain was performed at the concert on January 26.

Because of the lack of bass instruments in China, most Chinese orchestras adopt the Western double bass, but the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra has developed a Chinese double bass-gehu, the biggest of the huqin (Chinese bowed instrument) family, which has a more Chinese timbre.

"The Chinese orchestra is a contribution by Chinese musicians to their culture in the 20th century," says Yan. "It is a high music form on the basis of Chinese folk music."

The birth of the Chinese orchestra can be traced to 1920, when Zheng Jinwen (1871-1935) founded the Datong Music Society (Datong Yuehui), a group of Chinese instruments with 32 players. More Chinese orchestras were started in the 1950s and 1960s, like the Shanghai National Music Orchestra and Central National Music Orchestra.

Today, Chinese orchestras can be found in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore.

At a symposium after the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra's concerts in Beijing, Bian suggested that Chinese orchestras form an association to further develop Chinese orchestral music.

For Yan, the goal is to promote Chinese orchestral music not only among the Chinese people, but also the whole world.

"Chinese orchestras are able to play different styles of music. I believe more and more first-class composers will compose for Chinese orchestras," he says.

(China Daily February 5, 2008)