|
As the conurbation of Shenzhen and Hong Kong gets stronger and stronger, the consumption preferences of Hong Kong people who travel north have remarkably changed in recent years. Apart from dining and entertainment, a considerable number of Hong Kong people are sending their children to Shenzhen to learn vocal singing and musical instruments. Liu Song, the founder of the Liu Song Vocal Art Centre and a renowned vocal music instructor in Shenzhen, said that his music centre has grown from only one centre in Gangxia of Futian to five centres spreading around Lowu Kouan and Nan Shan. Another music training centre, the Xiao Ai Yue Arts Training Centre, has also expanded from just one centre in Lowu last year to three this year, adding Baoli Theatre and Yuanling to its list.
Li Kwan-yui, who won the gold prize of the youth section in last year's international vocal singing competition held in Vienna, is a student in the Liu Song Vocal Art Centre. Li's father said that the fee for vocal training in Shenzhen was only HK$200 per hour, half of that in Hong Kong; but cost was not the only consideration for sending Kwan-yui there to learn singing. The most important factor was that there were in Shenzhen experts and responsible instructors. Mr Liu taught Kwan-yui to sing Italian classical songs in Italian, a kind of training which was not available in Hong Kong, he said.
The Xiao Ai Yue Culture and Arts Training Centre in Shenzhen has also got currently more than 20 pupils from Hong Kong. Twelve-year-old Cheung Hiu-suet is one of them. She started learning cello there at the age of eight. Early September this year, she and two other young pupils from Hong Kong took part in the "Enter the World of Music" – a Special Performance by Xiao Ai Yue String Orchestra held at the Baoli Theatre in Shenzhen. They gave a harmonious, rhythmic and vivid performance of Mozart's String Serenade.
Instructor Ye of the centre said many pupils from Hong Kong learned violin. Among them are Tse Cheuk-ching and her younger brother Tse Cheuk-nam; they have already earned a full scholarship granted by the Royal Academy of Music in the UK. Another pupil, the thirteen-year-old Chan Yi, who has been learning violin at the Xiao Ai Yue Arts Training Centre for a few years, plays very well now and is recently given a place in the Diocesan Girls' School, an elite school in Hong Kong.
■translated by 開明
|
