New Tune Chinese Orchestra and New Tune Music Association was established by the late Mr Yau Siu Pun in 1987 and 1997 respectively, with Ms. Cheung Mei Ling serving as the current Chairperson and Artistic Director. Our aim is to introduce outstanding traditional Chinese music, popular Chinese folk song and new compositions to the audience, while bringing compositions with high artistic value to the public. Through ‘Performance’, ‘Music Education’ and ‘Academic Seminar’ we promote the development of Chinese music, improve our musical skills and maintain professionalism.
Over the past 30 years, we have joined over 900 large-scaled and high quality performance and cooperated with over 150 musicians and 70 parties from overseas, mainland and Taiwan, and remain one of the most active non-professional orchestras in Hong Kong. We have performed around Beijing, Shanghai, Zhangjiagang, Lanzhou, Taipei, Taichung and Xiamen, Quanzhou, Fuzhou, Putian, Yantai, Weihai, Penglai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Macau, Fengkai, Xinyi and Vancouver, Canada, Indonesia Surabaya. We have around 500 rearranged and newly composed pieces, 40 of them are premiere works played by the Orchestra and some of the pieces are composed by members from the Orchestra. The Orchestra consists of members from different careers, many of them received a master or bachelor degree, and many of them are full-time Chinese instrument tutor.
To diversify our performances, we have different kinds of ensembles, including: New Tune Juvenile Chinese Orchestra, New Tune Zheng Ensemble, New Tune Juvenile Zheng Ensemble, Windpipe and Percussion Ensemble, Ruan Ensemble, Hulusi Ensemble, Symphony Orchestra and Choir. We have established a new Reed Ensemble recently.
New Tune Music Association has undertaken the National Examination (Hong Kong) organised by the Chinese Nationalities Orchestra Society (CNOS) since May 2007. Since 2009 we have presented four ‘Peaches and Plums Fragrance’ concerts – a showcase of outstanding candidates, and have been praised highly of our performance, conducting, musical works and stage management by the CNOS.
We actively participate in different social activities and is recognised as ‘charitable organisation’ and ‘volunteer organisation’, and is awarded the ‘Gold Certificate of Volunteer Work’ by the Hong Kong Social Welfare Department for years.
Our founding director, Mr. Yau Siu Pun has devoted into Chinese music education and performance over 40 years. With a master degree in music, he was an experienced teacher who also focused on research and theory, and we have built up a solid foundation under his guidance. The activities of New Tune Music Association and Orchestra is recorded in 2006-2009 Chinese Culture Yearbook and is known as ‘Honour Cultural Organisation’.
