FAME 2014 Journal - Edith

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April 2014

I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to the Hong Kong Arts Administrators Association and the Home Affairs Bureau’s Arts Capacity Development Funding Scheme for allowing me to engage in fellowship attachment at the National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center (now renamed National Theater‧Concert Hall) The first day I was on board, one of the colleagues showed me around the venues and facilities of theaters and the concert hall for more than two and a half hours! I felt dazzled and lost with the huge and maze-like premise, but what impressed me most was the pipe organ.

A pipe organ is regarded as the most ingenious, complex, and noble of all musical instruments. The 4,172-pipe organ in the Concert Hall was tailor made by the Dutch Company Flentrop. The height of the longest pipe is almost 5 feet whilst the most shortest one is 15cm, made out of either metal or wood. What distinguished it from other pipe organs is the design which blends the traditional Chinese carved floral pattern with the shape of the Western instrument. It had spent about 2 years for production and installation.

In a bid to promote the pipe organ to a wider audience, the Sales and Customer Service Department has been organising 10 weekday morning concerts annually, apart from the slots for rehearsals and performances of regular programmes. The target audiences are students, yet the concert also attracted the elderly, parents and children as well as religious groups to attend the concert, in total of 3,865 patrons.

I attended the morning concert with enthusiasm on 14 April. The pipe organ and piano concert was hosted by Mr James Chen Kuan-chou, who gave a detailed introduction of the history and the installation of the pipe organ. I felt the majestic and glorious sounds of the organ filing the room, moving the air. After the concert, I had the precious chance to take a closer look at the stops and asked Mr Chen for the information about designing and tuning the pipes. The concert offered me a full-body experience!