Hong Kong Youth NeoWinds Orchestra Annual Concert 2005

Founded by Tom Lee Music Foundation, led by distinguished band director, Danilo Delfin and instructors Martin Choy and Choi Lap Tak, The Hong Kong Youth Neowinds Orchestra proudly presented their 2005 annual concert, which was held in The Concert Hall of City Hall, on 30th October.

The celebrated trumpeter in Asia-Pacific region, Mr Yeh Shu-Han, was invited to be the guest performer for solo performance for a concerto. The audience was therefore able to see how this notable musician presented the music in five different distinctive styles!

Half an hour before the concert started, music-professionals, music-lovers, friends and family of members of the orchestra gathered in the lobby. Everyone seemed to be so eager to watch the concert!
The First Session: Indulge in the Classics
The warmest welcome applause marked the beginning of the concert. All of the orchestra members came on the stage and prepared themselves well for their grand concert. When Danilo Delfin the conductor gave out the very first signal, the first piece, Fanfare and Flourishes burst in the concert hall! This piece was approached with flare and energy with an exacting tempo and marcato style.

The second piece, The barber of Seville Overture was originated in G. Rossini’s compositions in early 19th century for a theatre play, and was transcribed by K. Singleton. The music exhibited the composer in his most exhilarating mood and sparkled with fancy. And the clarinetists and flutists of the orchestra did an excellent job to present this immortal piece!

It was then followed by K. Hesketh’s Danceries. “Danceries” was once used by master fiddle players to teach various dances in nobles’ home or kings’ court in Europe. Consisting of four movements, this Danceries delivered beautiful melodies comprising a mixture of new and old. Together with the orchestra’s nice play, the audience was able to listen to the lovely thematic piece with new features of harmonies and rhythms.

Featured with the soloist play by the notable Taiwanese trumpeter Mr. Yeh Shu-Han, Concerto for Trumpet and Winds was the last piece of the first part of the concert. This concerto consisted of 5 movements, and each of them was possessed different style and required Mr. Yeh’s brilliant techniques and expressions with three major soprano brass instruments – trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn.

It was a dedicated piece to Mr. Yeh, and Mr. Yeh demonstrated his ability to produce a convincing interpretation in five different musical styles – the sonata in the 1st movement which the soloist played with a trumpet; the second “Slow Blues” called for Flugelhorn; the third “Jazz Waltz” had the soloist played with Cornet; the fourth “Song” which was originated by Taiwanese old folksong and the fifth “Samba” concluded the fantastic piece with a burst of Latin-American passion and rhythms.
The Second Session: Delight in Modern Classics

If I needed to classify the concert’s music selection in the simplest way, it could be concluded, superficially, that classical music was the main focus of first half of the concert while the second half would be the medley of the greatest hits in recent years. These medleys joined by different great melodies coming from a wide selection of notable musicals, movies, cartoons and pop music. Probably the program design targeted at different tastes of audience and Neowinds Orchestra could also demonstrate the multi-diversity of music!

“The Merry Widow” Selections was the first song played in the second half of the concert. It came from the original production of the masterpiece operetta “The Merry Widow” premiered in Austria in 1905. The melodies from “Song for Vilia” and “Merry Widow Waltz” were some of the lovely ones. Coming to the next medley, Japanese Graffiti IX consisted of four big Japanese hits of Momoe Yamaguchi who was a super idol in Japan in 1970s.

It was then followed by The Magic of Andrew Lloyd Webber, played in allegretto style and comprised of 5 renowned super hits from different musicals such as “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” from “Evita”, “Memory” from “Cats”, “The Phantom of the Opera” and so on. If you are fans of Andrew Lloyd Webber and his musicals, definitely you must enjoy this piece!

Finally, the orchestra brought us a medley, which was arranged by N. Iwai, with 7 melodies extracted from Disney’s the best – such as “Mickey Mouse March” from “Mickey Mouse Club”, “It’s a Small World” and “Heigh-ho” from “Snow White”.

With joyfulness filled in the concert hall, all the audience enjoyed so much in this very last piece and gave a big hand to the orchestra for their great effort to create such bright pieces. Definitely the orchestra must be very proud of their big work! We are looking forward to their performances again!