When oboist Leanne Nicholls landed in Hong Kong from Australia in 1989, she felt she had drawn a very short straw. Her medic husband had arrived the previous year to work at the University of Hong Kong while she completed postgraduate studies in Germany.
However, she felt embarrassed rather than exhilarated about her move here. While friends from her native Adelaide joined better-known orchestras in Europe, Nicholls faced Hong Kong's reputation as a cultural desert.
'In the early years I was almost embarrassed to say I was pursuing a musical career in Hong Kong because really there was nothing,' she says. There had been an inkling about the situation when her husband wrote to ask Anne Boyd, the then head of the HKU's music department, about employment possibilities.
'I wish I could be more optimistic about the prospects for an Australian oboist in Hong Kong,' Boyd replied. 'Alas, I cannot.'
Having faced such adversity, it is to Nicholls' credit that the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, of which she is the founder, artistic director and principal oboist, will celebrate its 10th anniversary at a concert next Sunday. The event bears all the hallmarks of her initial vision: to have about 30 accomplished players deliver imaginative programmes to persuade audiences that there's life beyond the standard classics.
Nicholls attributes the orchestra's success to 'innovative programming'. 'Compared with other chamber orchestras, we've been quite daring; there's a bit more spice,' she says, citing guest appearances last season by German male soprano Jorg Waschinski and glass harmonica player Thomas Bloch.