Appreciation of Maestro Leung Yee-chung’s Cantonese Music and Opera (in Cantonese)

Maestro Leung Yee-chung (梁以忠1905-1974) was a versatile musician, composer and singer of Cantonese music and opera. Cantonese music broadly refers to the different vocal and instrumental genres popular in Guangdong; Cantonese opera is a theatrical art form that incorporates music, singing, acting, acrobats and martial arts to tell stories based on Chinese history, classics and myths.

Renowned as a Cantonese opera vocalist, Maestro Leung founded a unique school of vocal music (解心腔) characterized by the use of a flexible and sentimental voice that differs from the rhythm and expression of traditional singing. This new style has contributed significantly to the enrichment and development of Cantonese vocal music in Hong Kong.

Maestro Leung was also a violinist, famous for his ingenuities in playing a diverse range of Chinese musical stringed instruments, in particular, erxian (二弦), erhu (二胡) and small houguan (短筒喉管). Many of his instrumental compositions are frequently performed and widely recognized as famous Cantonese operatic fixed tunes (小曲) that have been commonly adopted into Cantonese opera.

Programme

To commemorate and celebrate Maestro Leung Yee-chung’s contribution to Cantonese music, we are delighted to present the following special programme

• A brief introduction to the “Five Instruments”

• Maestro Yu Qi-wei (余其偉), Head of the Department of Chinese Music,
Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and his team will perform selected
masterpieces from Maestro Leung Yeechung’s collection.

• Maestro Leung’s daughters, Leung So-kam (梁素琴) and Leung Chi-kit (梁
之潔) will demonstrate a session of the “Eight Famous Pieces”.