"The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra's "Composers Workshop - Beyond the Ring" Public Working Session and Showcase was held on 13 March 2018 at the Grand Hall, Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong. In our commitment to nurturing composing talents in Hong Kong, the HK Phil has organised a series of workshops and a public showcase for six young local composers - Chan Chi-long, Kwok Man-ho, Meilina Tsui Mei-ling, Wong Ching-yin, So Ho-chi, and Wong Chun-wai. Their new works were premiered by the HK Phil under the baton of conductor Sebastian Perowski, with the honoured attendance of officiating guest Mrs. Angelina Cheung, Deputy Secretary for Home Affairs."

Meilina Tsui: "I was impressed by the excellent performance by the HK Phil. The ancillary programmes provided me with much inspiration for my composition. The conductor was very experienced. I appreciated his comments, which will improve my future compositions." (Translated from Cantonese)

Can you tell us a bit more about the work by Tsui?

N: We will be playing her ‘Six Miniature Pieces of Yin and Yang’. This is an interesting and challenging work! Mary and I played two of them – ‘Water’ and ‘Fire’ – last year for the Musicarama 2016 concert, and those two movements gave us quite a lot of headache!

M: Yes, there’s lots of running around [on the keyboard]. I thought ‘Water’ was quite effective, not in the Ravel / Debussy sense, but in that there were some still and meditative moments. ‘Fire’ was harder [to grasp] as the texture is quite thick.

N: After these two crazy movements come the other four movements are ‘Earth’, ‘Air’, ‘Dark’, and ‘Light’. Actually, Meilina was my student at Chinese University, and she is a most versatile and talented young lady.

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-- Taken from an interview with renowned Hong Kong pianists, Nancy Loo and Mary Wu.

"Meilina Tsui (Class of 2012) returned to Renaissance College to give a composition masterclass for current DP music students and music scholars. Meilina is an award-winning composer and pianist who studied at CUHK and King’s College London, and is currently living in Hong Kong where she creates her own music and compositions."

1) Briefly introduce your commissioned work. 

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Frost is a 2-minute piece written for Xiao, Tenor Sheng, Er Hu and Yang Qin. It is based on a photograph of the Nina Tower in Tsuen Wan and its surroundings at night taken from a less urban area in Hong Kong.

2) How did the image inspire you to write this piece? 

The orange-tainted sky, the still, unobtrusive boats and dark waters had a profound influence on the slow pace and harmonic language used, especially in the beginning of the piece. The contrast to that, the lights from modern skyscrapers and ‘beehive’ residential buildings across the waters inspired different musical ideas which altered the mood of the piece to something more lively and dynamic.

3) All visual elements of this concert, which served as the initial inspiration for the composers, will be projected on screen during the performance. What is the difference between composing with and without a specified visual image?

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My musical interpretation of frost would have been very different had I not seen a specified visual image of it. Pictures have incredible power in evoking emotions, a single look at a picture can instantly affect your mood. You could also imagine yourself standing in the same spot as the photographer. For my case, I imagined myself standing alone on a shore facing the Nina Tower in Tsuen Wan on a cold winter night, feeling the winter chill blowing against my face, listening to the sounds of anchored boats rocking on small waves, trying to find peace in this remote part of Hong Kong but at the same time marvelling at the busy lights of the urban area from across the waters. The picture serves as a guide, and in a way it dictates what the observer should think about or feel. It could evoke many different emotions or it could evoke very little emotions, it all depends on what the focus, layers, and scope of the picture are. Composing music without the aid of visual image, on the other hand, would just mean that I am free to express things without limiting myself to the inspiration that I get from a picture.