When the Hong Kong Sinfonietta took its final curtain call of the season last week, the orchestra had completed a run of more than 60 performances over the past 12 months. And with its sporty banner - Believing Music Can - its 2008-09 programme seems flushed with optimism, as well it might be with audience figures for last season's concerts showing an average attendance rate of 92.7 per cent.
'It's been quite encouraging,' says Margaret Yang, the orchestra's chief executive. Yang, however, has to deal with the draining difficulties that beset its development.
The ink was barely dry on the draft of next season's brochure when a soloist cancelled, prompting a frantic search for a replacement. But that was just a storm in a teacup compared with the ongoing challenges to the orchestra's financial and operational infrastructure.
Just finding a venue is a continuing headache: like the city's other key music and performing arts groups, the orchestra has no place to call home.
'Like many other performing groups, we want a home for the orchestra, a proper place to rehearse and - better still - to rehearse in the venue that we're going to perform in,' says Yip Wing-sie, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta's conductor and music director. 'Our players would like a place where they can store their belongings, have a place to eat between rehearsals and some studios in which to practise.'
A partial solution to this problem is the Venue Partnership Scheme (VPS), a proposal from the Home Affairs Bureau that gives arts outfits a pecking order in reserving venues.