Advertisement
Advertisement

Conductor with the whole world in his hands hopes for harmony

Leon Tong Shiu-wai says his ultimate career goal is to bring the 9th World Choral Symposium to Beijing in the last week of July 2011. Then, he'll retire. Few people speak about their lives in such absolute terms, but the choral conductor has been trained to be precise during the past 30 years.

An active figure in a discipline that is said to have more than 40 million participants worldwide, Tong has spent time travelling on the mainland and overseas promoting choral singing through lectures, festivals and concerts.

It's now his ambition to help Beijing win its bid to host the World Choral Symposium, which typically attracts about 30 world class choirs from 60 countries and is held every three years. Also competing to host the event are Seoul and Cape Town. 'I want to make this possible,' says Tong. 'I want this to be my last job.'

But before then, he has a more urgent task at hand: organising this year's International Youth and Children's Choir Festival, which will take place in Hong Kong from July 10 to 12. Choirs from Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America will compete with groups from the mainland, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong for the US$25,000 prize. The event will feature a mixture of contemporary music, folklore and solo singing.

Choral singing requires dedication. Tong says notes have to be sung in perfect tone and at perfect volume. Individual members must listen attentively to the group and possess the stamina to perform and compete.

A teacher in the field obsesses even more. 'I must know how to correct,' says Tong. 'I must figure out what is needed. I have to teach the children how to sight read, how to sing, how to breathe. I have to correct them and at the same time keep them concentrating.'

It's little wonder that Tong, 55, wants to retire by the time he turns 60, after an intense career spanning more than three decades. His work ethic stems from his childhood. 'I wanted to play the piano, the violin and the cello, but my parents didn't allow me to,' he says. 'They thought learning music would mean no money.'

Tong spent his childhood without music lessons, but in secondary school he was able to take up music for free. He joined the harmonica and recorder bands as well as the school choir. When he was 17, he started tutoring primary school students three days a week in various academic subjects. He made enough money to pay for his own piano lessons, and within three years he passed his grade eight exam.

Tong became the student of Wu Pak-chau, the godson of Beniamino Gigli, who is regarded as one of the greatest operatic tenors of his time. The maestro could spare only 30 minutes a week for the novice, but Tong says he wasn't disheartened and made the best out of what he had. 'I sat there the whole Saturday and listened to how he taught.' He learned from Wu's methodology and eventually became a choral singing teacher.

Tong brought Hong Kong's children's choir to a champion-ship win at the International Choral Festival in Spain in 1985. In 1993 and 1999, he led the Hong Kong Children's Choir and the Guangzhou Children's Palace Choir to perform at the World Symposiums on Choral Music in Vancouver and Rotterdam.

Tong counts the win in Spain as one of the most memorable moments in his life. 'The audience was all standing up, crying, shaking our hands,' he says. 'It was so touching and so deeply moving.'

Technical precision aside, good music and choral singing should also possess the power to move, Tong says. The composers he admires most are Franz Schubert and Wong Ji, who scored the classical Chinese poem Song of Eternal Lament.

Tong says he's excited that children from Hong Kong and the mainland will 'sing side by side and interact with people from different parts of the world' at the festival. He thinks choral singing is a good learning tool for China's youth. 'The one-child policy has produced children who can't listen and watch in a group. They've been treated like a prince or a princess at home, and they don't know how to communicate.'

Tong's focus is on the children he teaches, but also on promoting China's choral music to the rest of the world - and choral music to the mainland.

His work functions on a grand scale, but he has a straight-forward philosophy for life: 'Ensure everything you do is done well.'

Post