As it marks its 50th anniversary, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra (HKCO) opens a season built on grandeur and openness, where five decades of tradition meet a new generation of talent, from a newly commissioned oratorio for a doomed princess to a 50th anniversary songbook shared with Hong Kong’s own composers
Founded in 1977, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra (HKCO) turns 50 this season, having spent five decades becoming one of the leading ensembles in Chinese orchestral music internationally. Its 50th anniversary season opens in September 2026 with a concert that doubles as the finale of the 2026 International Sheng and Reeds Festival, itself launched back in March 2026 with a Guinness World Records™ record-breaking marathon performance. For its golden jubilee, HKCO has chosen a single Chinese character, 奕 (Yi), as its artistic motto for the season, a decision that, as with each of the orchestra’s yearly mottos, sets the tone for everything that follows.
Artistic Director and Principal Conductor for Life Yan Huichang explained the choice: “We’ve selected Yi [奕] as the artistic motto for the new season. According to ancient texts, ‘Yi denotes greatness’ and is a symbol of grandeur and brilliance. What constitutes the most beautiful expression of Chinese orchestral music is the spirit of Yi – a grand narrative and a resplendent sonic palette. Examining the strokes for this Chinese character, one notices that its intersecting lines are completely open, without enclosing or restrictive shapes, perfectly aligning with the orchestra’s long-held ethos: ‘From traditional roots to cutting-edge visionary. Embracing diversity and eclectic styles’.”
The choice is a deliberate one. Yi’s open, unenclosed strokes are meant to mirror an ethos HKCO has held since its earliest days: rootedness without rigidity. Fifty years on, that has meant preserving a millennium of tradition while pushing towards modernisation and internationalisation, from developing eco-friendly huqin instruments to gathering thousands of drummers for a single festival.
The season opens by looking outward. “Thousand Reeds, One Universe” is the centrepiece of the 2026 International Sheng and Reeds Festival, and a study in the same openness the Yi motto describes. Under Yan Huichang’s baton, some of the world’s most celebrated reed soloists appear together on one stage (see boxout). The wider festival has already made headlines of its own in a March 2026 marathon performance that gathered 1,230 reed players aged between four and 87 to set a Guinness World Records™ title for the largest reed instrumental ensemble.
HKCO’s touring calendar keeps pace with its ambitions at home. In September 2026, “A Music Journey to Sichuan”
(5 September, Chengdu City Concert Hall) sees the orchestra represent Hong Kong at Hong Kong Week 2026, part of a wider “Clarion Call for Eco-Awareness” touring theme running across the year. HKCO’s golden jubilee also marks a formalisation of its Greater Bay Area strategy. The orchestra has signed a memorandum of understanding for strategic partnership with Xinghai Concert Hall, building on two years of well-received guest performances there, including November’s “The Spirit of the Masters”, which will later transfer to Hong Kong. Executive Director Celina Chin framed the wider ambition in commercial as well as artistic terms: “The HKCO is very honoured to join hands with the Greater Bay Area’s tourism industry and Sun Hung Kai Malls to launch partnerships via the strong networks of shopping centres as well as precise coordination with tour operators in such collaborative efforts, transforming the HKCO’s musical feasts into first-hand, up-close experiences.”
That outward reach continues into 2027, when Hong Kong marks the 30th anniversary of its return to Europe and the mainland. HKCO joins the “27th Grand Chinese New Year Concert” with a programme of four monumental works: Chew Hee Chiat’s Harken Back to Zhou, Peng Xiuwen’s Terra Cotta Warriors Fantasia, Zhao Jiping’s Silk Road Fantasy Suite and Ng Cheuk-yin’s Tang Resonating, performed in renowned concert halls across Europe. Separately, during July and August 2027, the orchestra travels to Beijing, Wuhan, Changsha and Zhengzhou as part of the same anniversary celebrations.
Closer to home, the Hong Kong Drum Festival, now in its 24th year, returns with “Majestic Drums” (31 October 2026) as its flagship concert, welcoming back Malaysia’s Orang Orang Drum Theatre. Running alongside it, the 2026 Hong Kong Synergy 24 Drum Competition enters its own 24th year, inviting drumming ensembles of all backgrounds to compete at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Together they remain one of HKCO’s most visible community-facing platforms, drawing performers from primary school to professional percussionists.
Talent development threads through the rest of the season too. “Music from the Heart”, now in its 28th year, continues as HKCO’s platform for emerging composers. In addition, “Music from the Heart – Budding Composers”, partners with the Education Bureau to bring secondary school students from Hong Kong into professional workshops and rehearsals, with audiences invited to vote for their favourite new work. “HKCO4U – Passing the Torch” (18-19 December 2026) extends that mission further, showcasing outstanding young graduates of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, with Cantonese music master and gaohu virtuoso Yu Qiwei as artistic adviser, in a programme of Cantonese and Jiangnan silk-and-bamboo repertoire, curated by HKCO young musicians.
That balance runs through the season’s programming, which frequently looks backwards in order to move forwards. “Classics: Splendid Sonorities” (15 May 2027) revisits five decades of HKCO-commissioned works, tracing landmark premieres that have travelled from Hong Kong onto the international stage. It is conducted by Sun Peng, winner of HKCO’s own inaugural International Conducting Competition for Chinese Music in 2011, with pipa virtuoso Zhang Hongyan as soloist.
Throughout the season HKCO keeps returning to the idea captured in Yi’s own open, unenclosed strokes: rooted, but never restrictive. As Yan Huichang explained in his season announcement, HKCO hopes its music will “gallop freely through Hong Kong, showcasing the purest and most magnificent vitality of Chinese orchestral art.” Looking to HKCO’s future, the invitation he extends remains a simple one: “Basked in the brilliance of Yi, let us join together to create glorious music in the next 50 years.”
To discover more about HKCO’s new season,
visit www.hkco.org
Record-breaking reeds
In March 2026, HKCO set a Guinness World Records™ title for the largest reed instrumental ensemble, as part of the 2026 International Sheng and Reeds Festival. The “Endless Sheng, Thousand Reeds in Harmony” marathon, initiated and conceived by Artistic Director and Principal Conductor for Life Yan Huichang, gathered 1,230 reed instrument players aged between four and 87, drawn from Hong Kong and abroad, for a single mass performance. HKCO is dedicated to the wellness of the elderly as part of its commitment to society. The orchestra invited sponsors to fund elderly participants’ sheng lessons, enabling them to learn the instrument and take part in the marathon, an international arts event.
The record sits alongside a wider festival programme built to test the reach of the sheng and its relatives. “Contenders for the Reeds, New Movement in Sheng”, jointly presented with the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, combined a professional sheng competition with an open call for new works. The competition drew 211 qualified entries from China’s 11 major conservatories and dozens of ensembles and institutions across the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea, while the call for new works attracted 43 submissions from as far afield as Russia and the United States. Winners, led by Shanghai Conservatory professor Zhong Zhiyue, travel to Hong Kong for a dedicated Winners’ Concert (18 September 2026) at the HKCO Recital Hall, where the winning compositions are performed.
The festival’s centrepiece is HKCO’s 50th anniversary season opening concert, “Thousand Reeds, One Universe”, conducted by Yan Huichang. It brings together 11 of the world’s celebrated reed players: Weng Zhenfa, Wu Wei, Chen Yi-wei, Lu Yi, Geng Sen, Liu Chang (sheng), Yang Zhengping (lusheng), Sun Nantachai (Thai khaen), Remi Miura (Japanese shō), Olena Uutai (Jew’s harp) and Wong Ching Yin (organ). Together, they form “a true musical panorama of the reed instrument family”.
HKCO and CASH mark 50 years together
HKCO isn’t the only Hong Kong institution reaching a golden jubilee this anniversary season – the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong (CASH) marks 50 years too, in 2027, and the two organisations have built a concert around the shared milestone.
“Co-Creating 50 – HKCO x CASH” (19 June 2027, Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall) draws on works by CASH’s founding members alongside winners of its Golden Sail Music Awards, spanning six decades of Hong Kong composition. The programme includes founding CASH director Doming Lam’s Insect World, founding member Ng Tai Kong’s Chance Encounter, Law Wing Fai and Cheng Kok Kong’s Hope, selections from Chen Ning-chi’s musical Tales of the Walled City, current CASH chairman Chan Wing Wah’s Phoenix Nirvana and Kuan Nai-chung’s Bumper Harvest workshop.
Its best-known inclusion is Below the Lion Rock, the Joseph Koo and James Wong anthem that has functioned as an unofficial civic hymn since the 1970s – a piece whose presence in the programme does much of the emotional work on its own. Ng Cheuk-yin’s Tang Resonating completes the line-up, conducted by Yan Huichang and performed alongside the Hong Kong Children’s Choir.
Paired together, the two 50th anniversaries reflect how Hong Kong’s Chinese orchestral and Cantopop songwriting traditions have develped side by side rather than in parallel – two institutions reaching the same milestone in the same year, still drawing on the same well of composers and collaborators half a century on.
A new cantata for Princess Chang Ping, a programme for the 55th Hong Kong Arts Festival (2027)
2027 marks two anniversaries for one of Cantonese opera’s most enduring works: the 110th anniversary of the birth of playwright Tong Tik-sang and the 70th anniversary of the premiere of his masterpiece, Princess Chang Ping.
To mark the occasion, HKCO has commissioned a new Chinese cantata from composer Chan Hing-yan, with a libretto by classical Chinese scholar Nicholas Louis Chan and direction by Tsang Man-tung. Listed in the season brochure as “The Flower Princess”, the work is billed as a cantata scored for Chinese orchestra, narrator and six singers, and will be presented on 5 March 2027 at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall, as part of the 55th Hong Kong Arts Festival.
The cast comprises sopranos Candice Chung and Athene Mok, mezzo-soprano Samantha Chong, tenors Alex Tam and David Quah, bass-baritone Apollo Wong and narrator Lucas Yung. Four of the six singers take on multiple roles across the story, including one performer embodying emperors from two rival dynasties, while the narrator offers an objective lens on events. Structured in 10 movements, the piece dispenses with traditional opera staging and costume in favour of a concert setting, telling Tong’s original story of doomed love and political upheaval in the dying days of the Ming dynasty.
“The Spirit of the Masters”
At the invitation of Xinghai Concert Hall, HKCO returns to Guangzhou on 6 November 2026 for “The Spirit of the Masters”, presented as part of the 2026 GBA Culture and Arts Festival. The concert follows earlier performances at the venue and continues the orchestra’s cultural and artistic exchange with Guangdong and Hong Kong.
The programme brings together four composers: Zhao Jiping’s Guo Feng, built on variations of the folk tune Three Variations on Plum Blossom and shifting between sorrow and resilience; Jia Daqun’s Capriccio · Opera Bamboo Tunes, featuring dizi soloist Wang Junkan and inspired by Kunqu opera; Yan Huichang’s The Puppet’s Passion, a 2026 China National Arts Fund grantee work drawing on Heyang County’s Xianqiang string-puppet opera tradition, with Wang Kun, a virtuoso from the Shaanxi Heyang County Xianqiang Puppet Troupe, playing seven traditional instruments single-handedly; and the world premiere of the Chinese orchestra arrangement of Wang Liping’s The Dream of the Red Chamber Capriccio, arranged by and featuring cello soloist Trey Lee alongside Alfred Wong.
In late November 2026, the programme transfers to Hong Kong with a performance at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall on 21 November. For an orchestra marking its own 50th anniversary, the concert doubles as a tribute to the composers who have shaped Chinese orchestral music over recent decades, situating HKCO’s own jubilee within a wider tradition it has helped carry forward.