Hong Kong’s oldest choir in US handover celebration
Oratorio Society joins up with chorus of city emigrants for California shows
The city’s oldest choir set out to mark the handover anniversary in America, but ended up in a historic first, plus a union with musicians of the Hong Kong diaspora.
Some 70 members of the Hong Kong Oratorio Society, founded in 1956, are on a two-city tour of California.
After a sell-out performance at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco on Friday night, the choir, under music director and renowned composer Chan Wing-wah, will make its debut on Sunday at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, a landmark in downtown Los Angeles.
“I believe that would be the first for an arts group from Hong Kong and we are very honoured to perform at that renowned hall,” Chan said.
Both nights they will share the stage with a choir formed by Hong Kong emigrants to San Francisco, and local players.
“The idea of a joint performance first came about in late 2015 when Professor Chan performed his song Drunken Dream with us,” said Stephanie Chan Ming-ngun, founder of Voices of the Valley choir, and former music master at St Paul’s Co-educational College, Hong Kong, who left for the United States with her violinist husband in 1996.