Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts
Nov 9, 8pm
The Hong Kong Welsh Male Voice Choir has spent a busy year celebrating its 30th anniversary. It has recorded a CD and toured extensively, performing in Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, and appearing in two of the world's great concert halls, the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Opera House in Sydney.
The celebrations will be rounded off this Sunday on home turf at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (APA) with a programme entitled Daffodils and Dragons - daffodils in honour of the 'Daffodil Award', named for the Welsh national flower, through which the choir sponsors the studies of APA students, and dragons because of the mythical creature's symbolic importance to both Wales and China.
The choir (above), conducted by musical director Bryan Carter, has chosen a programme that highlights the many different areas of music the singers like to perform. Pieces as different in style as Wagner's Prayer and Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat from the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls will be included, alongside a number of hymns, folk songs and other traditional and contemporary Welsh tunes.
The choir is now a well-established institution in Hong Kong and performs at venues ranging from private clubs to concert halls. This will be the second time it is joining forces with students of the APA and the 70-plus singers - some, though not all of them, Welsh - share the bill with pianist Rachel Cheung Wai-ching, Chen Yong, a tenor from the mainland whose studies the ensemble sponsors, soprano Ricel Guiman from the Philippines and the academy's Cantonese Music Ensemble.