Yong Hua Chen Chen, Yong Hua
Composer and conductor, and the first Composer-in-Residence of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. He has written nine symphonies as well as many orchestral, chamber and choral works and children’s songs. Seven of his symphonies have been released by Hugo Productions, recorded by two Russian symphony orchestras, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. The full scores of his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies are published by People’s Music Publishing House in Beijing.
His honours include First Prize in the International Double Reed Society Composition Competition (USA), the Irino Prize (Japan), and the “Classics of 20th-Century Chinese Music” award from the China Association for the Promotion of Chinese Culture in Beijing. He received the Composer of the Year award (1991) from the Hong Kong Artists’ Guild, was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons in 1992, and won TVB’s Children’s Song Awards, the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong’s 1997 award for the most performed local serious music work, and its Golden Sail Music Award for Best Serious Music Work in 2004 and 2007. His works have been presented internationally at the ISCM World Music Days in Stuttgart, Germany; the Ljubljana Summer Festival, Slovenia; the first music festival in Trieste, Italy; the Aleksander Tansman Festival in Łódź, Poland; LIM 2Mil in Madrid and the BBK arts festival at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain; and the Klang-Klee festivals in Winterthur and Bern, Switzerland; as well as at music festivals in mainland China, Taiwan, the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Poland, Romania, Russia, Argentina, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Japan and Korea. He is listed in the online edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. In 2000 he was appointed a Justice of the Peace by the Hong Kong government.
Professor Chen has been Music Director of the Hong Kong Oratorio Society (founded in 1956) since 1995, regularly leading the choir in its concert seasons and on tour. He has also conducted orchestras in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Macau and Gwangju, Korea, as well as the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and the Hong Kong String Orchestra. In 2017 he conducted the Hong Kong Oratorio Society and a San Francisco string orchestra, together with four Hong Kong Chinese instrumentalists, in performances of his Eighth (Choral) Symphony, “The Vast Land” (蒼茫大地), at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. In June 2019 he led the choir to Toronto, Canada, to give the premiere, with a local orchestra, of his Ninth Symphony, “Universal Love” (仁愛大同), written for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
He studied composition with David Gwilt at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, then went on with a Commonwealth Scholarship to the University of Toronto, where he studied with John Beckwith and earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in music. He has served as Chair Professor of Music, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Chairman of the Department of Music at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Executive Vice-Director of HKU SPACE, and Vice-President (Academic) of Centennial College, founded by the University of Hong Kong. He is currently a council member of the Chinese Musicians’ Association, Chairman of the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong, Chairman of the Association of Hong Kong Choirs, a council member of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Adjunct Professor of Music at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Senior Academic Advisor to HKU SPACE, and advisor to numerous organizations.