Our playlists feature music curated by our faculty, students, and staff, focusing on an interesting idea or theme. We invited Associate Professor of Musicology Dr. Hedy Law to share some of the music she’s been listening to.
By Dr. Hedy Law
The music you grow up listening to stays with you wherever you go. Looking back on the Cantonese music I grew up with, I’m amazed by how broad and varied a genre it is — from Cantonese opera to folk song to pop, it’s a well-loved global phenomenon that captures an important sense of identity, history and heritage for members of the Cantonese diaspora. This playlist will be taking you off the beaten track of Mozart and Monteverdi to introduce you to a different, but equally rich tradition of Cantonese music.
“Sorrows on an Autumn Trip”《客途秋恨》— a narrative song, or Naamyam 南音 (“Southern Tone” Song), sung by blind singer Dou Wun (杜煥).
Dou Wun was a really interesting artist, as one of the last blind songsters to carry on the local tradition of naamyam in a rapidly modernizing city. Professor Bell Yung from the University of Pittsburgh is an expert on naamyam, and has published widely on the subject. Check out this public lecture he gave at UBC to learn more about Dou Wun and naamyam.
“Silver Hair White”《銀髮白》by pop group Utopia, Momentarily 剎那的烏托邦 (Eman Lam 林二汶 & Yoyo Sham 岑寧兒)
I love this song – it’s a very poetic example of Cantopop. Released as part of the 2016 New Vision Arts Festival in Hong Kong, the artists call upon “alternative bodies, voices, imaginations, and you, to invoke a fantastical frisson of creativity, an experiment of un-aging, de-silencing and re-gaining hope.”
The Yat Po Singers (一舖清唱), Hong Kong’s first professional a cappella choral theatre company, perform “Staying Under the Lion Rock”《獅子山下留》from their new musical This Victoria Has No Secrets.
The Yat Po singers are a really unique group, fusing popular Western genres like a cappella and musical theatre with Hong Kong culture to create a new kind of Cantonese musical. This Victoria Has No Secrets is an exploration of Hong Kong’s identity: once called the city of Victoria, it was a small, unassuming island which the British denounced as a “barren rock” in 1841. This musical invites the audience to reminisce their memories of the city, bonding them through their shared history, experiences and feelings.
Autumn Yearning by the Dresser《妝台秋思》
This is a beautiful fixed tune that is frequently used in Cantonese Opera. Performed by Sun Yongzhi (孫永志), the principal flutist of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and a yangqin (dulcimer) player.
“Peaceful Night”《平安夜》by Gigi Leung 梁詠琪
Another lovely example of Cantopop. This is a really sweet, comforting song that addresses the pressures we go through in our daily lives, releasing us from our mundane troubles and sadnesses through humour and free, childlike imagination.
The Flower Princess 帝女花 (1959) by Tong Dik Sang 唐滌生
The Flower Princess is my favourite opera. Premiered in 1957, it’s a historical story about the last princess of the late Ming dynasty, and a tragic love story similar to Romeo and Juliet. Before the princess could marry her beloved fiancé, they were invaded by the Qing dynasty. Since the Qing troops would eventually slaughter the princess, there was no way they could be together in this lifetime – so they decided to commit double suicide. The video above depicts this climactic scene, in which they drink a poisonous herb together on their wedding night, as a gesture of love and also political resistance. This is their last chance of dying together, being buried together, but at least they are together. So it’s just a very sad and touching story, and very relatable cross-culturally. It’s been adapted into two films, an audio recording and is one of Hong Kong’s most iconic stage productions. An excerpt of it was adapted by the composer Tan Dun in Symphony 1997, performed at the Handover ceremony.
