Music

Young yangqin player of Hong Kong, Kwok Ka-ying, is the first postgraduate to be awarded a Master’s degree in yangqin from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. She is currently an instructor in yangqin at the College of Allied Arts of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts – Chinese Opera and its Junior Music Programme, a freelance musician of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, a resident musician of the Windpipe Chinese Music Ensemble, a member of the Cimbalom World Association and the Founder and President of the Hong Kong Dulcimer Institute. Kwok was born in Guangzhou, China. She studied at the Guangdong Cantonese Opera Academy and the middle school affiliated to the Xinghai Conservatory of Music before she was awarded a full scholarship to study at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (APA) in 2005. Her mentors included Hu Ruoxiong, Wang Wenli, Chan Sam-lam, Cheung Yu-Chu and Yu Mei-lai, While at the APA, She was the Yangqin Principal of the Academy Chinese Orchestra. Between 2006 and 2010. She recorded for the production of The Heritage of Cantonese Music of the University of Hong Kong. In 2012, she gave her first talk on yangqin on which occasion she presented a paper entitled A Retrospective Look at the Yangqin Music of Guangdong and Its Stylistic Schools. She also won critical acclaim with her two solo recitals on the yangqin in 2010 and 2012. Kwok has been dedicating herself to teaching and performing yangqin in recent years. She has toured France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, mainland China, Macao and Taiwan, and performed as soloist with the Academy Chinese Orchestra, Hong Kong Oriental Chinese Orchestra, Hong Kong City Chinese Orchestra, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, Windpipe Chinese Music Ensemble, etc. She participated as a member of the Hong Kong Cantonese Orchestra in the 2012 CCTV Ethnic Instrumental Music Television Competition – Traditional Folk Ensemble Section, organized by China’s Central Television, and the group won a Silver Award. In 2013, she founded the Hong Kong Dulcimer Institute, was invited to attend the 12th International Congress of Cimbalom World Association in Taiwan to give talks and concerts in October.