Celebrating the 20th anniversary, Hong Kong City Hall

Celebrating the 20^th anniversary of The Federation of Alumni Associations of Chinese Colleges and Universities in Hong Kong

迎慶高校聯20週年

香港大會堂音樂廳 

It's our 15 year old birthday, so we decided to celebrate it with a style! Since The Federation of Alumni Associations of of Chinese Colleges and Universities in Hong Kong (中国高等院校香港校友会聯合會) was also 20 years old, so we made it as a big event for both of us. The front and rear stalls were rather full and we all had a wonderful night together. Obviously there were many not so professional and not so polish acts in the show, but on the whole we pulled it through.

We invited a few famous artists to join us that night and I particularly amazed by masters  Zhilin Xie (謝芷琳) and Zhihua Li (李志華). They were both well into their 80s. Master Xie was a singer and with his advanced age, he still could sing a lot better than most of the youngsters. Master Li was playing the accordion and he was also amazing too. They both were very focused and concentrated on and off the stage. I respected them tremendously!

On the whole, we managed to complete the programs with one or two minor hiccups only! Thanks to our group leader Ms. Chen and our conductor Mr. Zheng. Surely, this would be one of the highlights in my singing "career"!

渴望春天

小路

卡秋莎

我的中國心

星星索

黑龍江之波

LSCD HK Flower Show 2016, in Victoria Park

香港花卉展覽在維多利亞公園

The LSCD organised the Flower Show in Victoria Park every year and it was a major event to promote horticulture and the awareness of greening. HK was rather small relative, but the Government had provided many events to promote all sorts of ideas! I just loved this magic island despite people had many complaints about this place.

Since the music and cultural performances were part of the flower show to entertain the visitors of all ages, hence, we were invited to provide the service. I was very happy to have another occasion to sing solo and my singing master helped me to pick this song, 'A Spring of Rose, You Sent to Me', 送我一枝玫瑰花!

Ah..., all very good except the weather. It was ok in the morning, but when our BIG time approached, it rained and rained and more rained. The flower show had two performance halls: one with a cover and one without. Our program was delayed by 90 minutes since all the programs had to be rescheduled under the covered hall.

Apart from having a good time ourselves, this occasion was also important to our singing teacher. She had been working very hard for the last 7 years to promote her book, “Songs from China”. She translated around 30 Chinese famous folk songs into English as well as other languages such as Italian, German and French. Her aim was to introduce Chinese songs to the rest of the world, I admired her spirit. A lot of famous songs were so popular all over the world after hundred of years, might be partly due to many hard working people who translated them into various languages. She loved to do the same for some Chines songs. I wished her all the success and one day, people from all over the world could enjoy the Chinese folk songs.

LCSD Choral Concert, Tun Men Zhao Kang Yuan Plaza

屯門兆康苑噴泉廣場

The New Year's festival atmosphere was still milling around in the air and people seemed to be in good moods. We had our first appearing in 2016 in Tuen Mun soon after the holiday. Al and I were living around the Gold Coast, the Tuen Mun area for 10 years after we came back from Europe. So come back here for my solo performance was a very special event for me.

It must be the effect of the New Year's good wishes, we had a large crowd of people enjoying in our music. Some of them were clapping their hands and some even sung along with us. Looked like they were having a jolly good time, what else?! The drizzling weather made no difference for us.

As usual, we celebrated with a dinner after the performance. However, this time we also pre-celebrated the Chinese New Year in a month's time! Ok, it was a little bit early, but so what. Who said that one should not celebrate any joyful event as early as possible?! My New Year's wish for the group was that we could all improve our singing skills, but more importantly, we all had a healthy life. We lost one of our favourite members a few days ago. I liked to think that she was still singing and dancing on the other side of the world! She was sadly missed by all of us.

Ok, I knew I had to improve my singing in a big way, but I was working on it! How about just enjoyed my video for the time being.

Here was my singing.....

*** Non ti scordar di me.... *** 

無忘我

Q: What is the difference between a Wagnerian soprano and an All-Pro offensive lineman?
A: Stage makeup.

Book Launch : China's V-Day Parade, Exhibition Centre

<<中國抗戰勝利日大閱兵>> 大型書冊首發儀式

We were very honoured to be invited by Wen Hui Bao (文匯報) to join this event, The Book Launch Ceremony of the “China's V-Day Parade Photographs” in the Exhibition Centre, Wan Zai. We kicked off the event with the following two songs:

Yellow Knot (黃水謠)
This song was the Xian Xinghai's (冼星海) masterpiece and was one of the songs from the famous "Yellow River Cantata (黃河大合唱)". The "Yellow River Cantata" was used to promote the revolutionary spirit in 1939, as an important large-scale vocal work of Chinese modern creation. Impassioned songs, inspired and served the War in China.

In The Taihang Mountains (在太行山上)

The song started with, "The red sunshine is all over the East (紅日照遍了東方)," was a very strong and powerful melody, as one could image the red sun was rising slowly from the East. Later, it was depicting a picture of those brave and resourceful guerrillas image fighting among the mountain jungle.

When I was young, I was quite puzzled as why did various countries commemorating victories in important battles or wars. I thought those soldiers died during the wars and that was that. Besides, those were history! Obviously I was so wrong about the veterans. All those people who fought for their own countries for peaceful purposes should be respected by all. Without their sacrificed, we could not possible to have a good life now. Also, whoever committed war crimes, but still did not rectify their wrong doing were the worst kind of people on earth. It was very important to know our own history, we should always, thank the war veterans who sacrificed their lives for us. Let's treasure the peace we had now and moved forwards to the future!

There an ARMY guy and a Marine in the bathroom taking a leak, The Army guy zips up and starts to leave. The marine runs to stop him and says..."You know, in the Marines they teach us to wash our hands AFTER WE PEE." Then the Army guy SAYS..." In the Army they teach not to pee on our hands!"

A singing master with a flamboyant style...

One thing I had found common among the musicians, obviously, that most of them came from a reasonably good background and learnt music from their young tender days. Instead, I came from a perfectly normal, ordinary, but no thrill family. I managed to get a degree in England while I was working part-time to support myself, met Mr. Right and progressed along with my career slowly. Now in my retirement stage, funny enough, we all met again and shared our lives together. There was a Chinese saying “That is the fate of it ” (那就是缘分吧).

Master Wu inspired me with many new singing techniques and opened up my eyes/ideas about being a professional performer in a musical world.