Tchaikovsky

1812 Overture

Xian Xinghai

Yellow River Cantata

He Zhanhao & Chen Gang

Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto

Lim Kek-han

Music Director/Principal Conductor/Violin Soloist

Lim Kek-han was born in Indonesia of Chinese parentage. He began violin lessons under renowned Russian teacher Ywan Federoff and Dutch teacher Frits Hinse at the age of six. He graduated with distinction from the Royal Academy of Music in Amsterdam in 1951. Lim represented Holland three times in international music forums and he was the concertmaster of the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra. He later furthered his studies on conducting at Paris Conservatoire and the National Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. In 1958, he went to the former U.S.S.R. as a representative of China and performed with the best-known orchestras there. Lim resided in Hong Kong in 1971 and has been well-known as one of the local conductors and violinists.

Chan Lai-chun, Vivian

Soprano

Vivian Chan (LRSM, LTCL) is one of the most active sopranos in Hong Kong in recent years. She began her music training in voice first under Chen Leh, and continued under renowned vocalists Chiu Shao-chiu and Lola Young. She gave her debut recital in 1995 at the Hong Kong City Hall and won critical acclaim from the music community. In 1996, at the invitation of the Musicians’ Association of Quanzhou and Xiamen in China, she gave two recitals at the Tan Kah Kee Memorial Hall of Huaqiao University and the Xiamen Gulangyu Concert Hall respectively. In 1997, she was invited to sing in a cultural exchange programme in Guangzhou celebrating the reunification of Hong Kong with China. It was followed by two engagements to appear in Macao and Zhongshan in 1998, and another invitation to perform as soloist in the Yellow River Cantata concert in Beijing, which was accompanied by the Tianjin Symphony Orchestra in 2005. Chan has also been frequently invited to appear as guest soloist with choirs and orchestras in Hong Kong. Her repertoire includes selections from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and arias from Italian operas. She was a soloist in the full-length production, the Humen Beihuan, a cantata about the life and times of Lin Zexu, the Qing Dynasty officer who burnt thousands of caskets of opium imported by the western traders at Bocca Tigris.

Chan is currently the Artistic Director and conductor of the Boheme Children’s Choir. Her profile is listed in A Dictionary of Chinese Musicians published by the People’s Press in March, 1998.

Cheung Kin-wah, Petrus

Baritone

Petrus Cheung was born in Hong Kong and trained in voice under the tutelage of the renowned tenor, Yung Ho-do. An outstanding vocalist in Hong Kong, Cheung is endowed with a rich and powerful voice that exudes passion, which makes him an excellent interpreter of Ode to the Yellow River. He was invited by the Macao Cultural Centre and the Macao Polytechnic Institute to perform this piece in 2005, and by the China Singers and their conductor, Yau Siu-pun, to perform the same in 2007, all to critical acclaim.

For the past few years, Cheung has appeared frequently with the Hong Kong Oratorio Society as lead singer in Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Haydn’s Creation, Verdi’s and Schumann’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Christmas Cantatas, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 ‘Ode to Joy’. He has made two CD recordings with the Hong Kong Oratorio Society, and appeared on the same stage with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra of China, conductors such as Prof. Chan Wing-wah, Prof. Chen Tscheng-hsiung, Carmen Koon, Veiga Jardim and Allison So.