Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
The Leisure and Cultural Services Department will present a cross-cultural music lecture series entitled “When Chinese landscape painting meets Western classical music” from September to October. The eight-lecture series, hosted by music critic William Ting, will explore the connections between Chinese landscape painting and Western classical music through appreciating works of Chinese and Western artists from various perspectives. The programme will also feature live demonstrations by pianist Chung Chi-woo and qin musician Chung Siu-sun in different lectures, offering audiences a fresh perspective on viewing paintings and appreciating music.
Details of each lecture are as follows:
Lecture 1: “Connect: The Meeting Point of Chinese Painting and Western Music”
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Date: September 5 (Friday)
Piano demonstration: Chung Chi-woo
To provide an overview of the stylistic features and characteristics of Chinese landscape painting and Western classical music across different periods, examining the intersections between them and the similarities in their historical development.
Lecture 2: “Sublime: Fan Kuan and J.S. Bach”
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Date: September 12 (Friday)
Piano demonstration: Chung Chi-woo
To explore the connections between the works of Northern Song dynasty painter Fan Kuan and Baroque music master Bach, and discuss the intersection of “Travelers Among Mountains and Streams” and “The Art of Fugue”, two masterpieces in the history of Chinese painting and Western music.
Lecture 3: “Transcendent Elegance: Ni Zan and Mozart”
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Date: September 19 (Friday)
Piano demonstration: William Ting
Through appreciating the works of Yuan dynasty painter Ni Zan and Western classical music composer Mozart, in an attempt to reveal the inner worlds of the two artists while exploring the aesthetic significance and similarities behind their creations.
Lecture 4: “Visual Melodies: Sound and Music in the Paintings”
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Date: September 26 (Friday)
Guqin demonstration and explanation: Chung Siu-sun
Featuring a selection of Chinese landscape paintings and Western paintings to explore how to “listen” to the artworks’ audible elements, or how to integrate melodies and musical forms into the paintings with lines and colours, thereby discovering these “visible” sounds.
Lecture 5: “Ancient Worshipping: Dong Qichang and Brahms”
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Date: October 10 (Friday)
Piano demonstration: Chung Chi-woo
Through examining the works of Ming dynasty painter Dong Qichang and Western classical music composer Brahms, to explore how they both “imitated” their ancient masters while forging new paths for future generations, illustrating the close relationship between arts development and the social environment of their time.
Lecture 6: “The Beauty of Ugliness: Shitao and Beethoven”
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Date: October 17 (Friday)
Piano demonstration: Chung Chi-woo
To explore how the works of Qing dynasty painter Shitao and Western classical music composer Beethoven take ugliness as a kind of beauty, subverting the aesthetic traditions of their time, thereby offering new perspectives for interpreting these “ugly” creations.
Lecture 7: “Deliberate Blank: Silence and Emptiness in Music and Painting”
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Date: October 24 (Friday)
Piano demonstration: Chung Chi-woo
To analyse how the technique of “deliberate blank” in Chinese ink painting infuses works with “spiritual energy” and stimulates the viewers’ imagination, and how different uses of “silence” in Western music express emotions and imbue music with deeper meaning.
Lecture 8: “Inner Beauty: Fou Ts’ong and Huang Binhong”
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Date: October 31 (Friday)
Piano demonstration: William Ting
To explore how the essence of Chinese culture is reflected in the musical approach of pianist Fou Ts’ong from the perspective of musical interpretation, and how these relate to painter Huang Binhong’s works.
William Ting graduated from Hong Kong Baptist University and received his Master Degree in Historical Musicology from Royal Holloway, University of London. He is currently a life member of the International Association of Theatre Critics (Hong Kong). As a local music critic, Ting’s writings are widely published in art magazines, newspapers and online. As a musicologist, Ting has conducted numerous public lectures in recent years including Baroque Music Lecture Series: Bach & Beyond in 2022.
Chung Chi-woo earned his Master Degree in Piano Performance from the Manhattan School of Music in the United States. He has performed solo recitals and chamber performances across Europe and the United States and participated in many music festivals and master classes. Chung Siu-sun is a pupil of seasoned virtuoso of guqin Sou Si-tai, studying both guqin and xiao. He contributed his guqin expertise to the album “Gem of Ci Poetry Music” in recent years. He is currently the general officer of the Deyin Qin Society.
All lectures will be conducted in Cantonese and start at 7.30pm in the Lecture Hall of the Hong Kong Space Museum. Each lecture will run for about one hour and 30 minutes. Tickets priced at $80 (for each lecture, with free seating) are now available at URBTIX (www.urbtix.hk). For telephone bookings, please call 3166 1288. For programme enquiries, please call 2268 7321 or visit www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/CulturalService/Programme/en/music/programs_1886.html.