Oxfam Musical Marathon 2.0

Nancy Loo, Oxfam Music Ambassador and pianist

Nancy Loo is one of Hong Kong’s most versatile artists, being pianist, radio programme host, actress, writer, and educator. She currently teaches piano at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the University of Hong Kong. She is also the Artist in Residence at the Education University of Hong Kong.

Having started to learn the piano at the age of five with Betty Drown, Loo attended the Juilliard School in 1965 under the tutelage of Mieczyslaw Munz and Adele Marcus. After graduating with a Master’s degree, she continued her studies with Vlado Perlemuter in France and Guido Agosti in Italy, as well as Ryszard Bakst and Derek Wyndham at the Royal Northern College of Music in the UK. In 1976, she won first prize at the Fourth Rina Sala Gallo International Competition in Monza, and has since won awards in many other international competitions, including the Marguerite Long International Competition in Paris.

Loo has performed in concerts in England, Europe, North America and Asia. She has appeared as a soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Zagreb Radio Symphony Orchestra, Thessaloniki State Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra and the National Philharmonic of the Philippines. In Hong Kong, she has played with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra.

Loo appears frequently in festivals and events on the local music scene. As the founder of the piano and woodwind sextet Les Six, she has also worked with local and visiting artists in many chamber music concerts. A keen performer of contemporary music, she frequently participates in Musicarama presented by the Hong Kong Composers’ Guild and the ISCM World Music Days Festival. She was the featured artist in Hymns on Piano at the Hong Kong Arts Festival in 2016.

But Loo’s talents are not limited to concert performance alone: she has participated in various multi-media performances, musicals and operas, such as Kung Chi-shing’s M Garden, and in drama productions, such as The Tale of Three Hong Kong Women with the Hong Kong Fringe Club and The Music Factory with Chung Ying Theatre Company. She has also accompanied with the City Contemporary Dance Company as pianist in The Rite of Spring and Testimony, and for Musica Viva in Donizetti’s opera La fille du régiment.

Loo’s CDs include a solo piano album of Christian music; Ambush from All Sides and Moonlight on Spring River with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra; piano works by local composers; and the Brahms Hungarian Dances with violinist Leung Kin Fung. A series of recording projects are in process, including hymn transcriptions by Chinese composers, a concerto for piano and wind band, and Schoenberg’s song cycle The Book of the Hanging Gardens.

Loo’s engagement with music education in the community is noteworthy; she frequently serves as an adjudicator for piano competitions as well as giving talks and master classes. Her recent contributions include serving on the adjudication panel of the Steinway & Sons International Youth Piano Competition (Hong Kong and Macau Regional Competition). She has been the presenter of RTHK Radio Four’s Cantilena for over ten years and of Children’s Corner, a classical music programme for parents and children, for over twenty years. Recently, she has become actively involved in music ministry in prisons, sharing her passion for music with some of the least advantaged in our society.

Loo’s service to the community through music was first recognised when she became a recipient of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons Award early in 1978. She received the HKSAR Medal of Honour in 2010, and was honoured as the Artist of the Year (Music) by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council in 2016.

Kin Fung Leung, First Associate Concertmaster, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra

Leung Kin Fung received the ‘Ten Outstanding Young Persons Award’ in Hong Kong in 2002. Leung was the first Hong Kong musician to win the first prize at the ‘1992 Young Artist Competition’ in New York. He also won the second prize at ‘The 19th William Primrose International Viola Competition’ in 1991. In 1986, He was listed in the ‘Who’s Who in the HKSAR’ published by Sing Tao Publishing Ltd in 2004. He was commended for making outstanding achievements in the promotion of arts and culture, under the Secretary for Home Affairs’ Commendation Scheme 2005. In 2015, Leung was awarded ‘Artist of the Year_Music 2014’ by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

Since 2000, Leung has been the First Associate Concertmaster of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Artistic Director of Hong Kong Pure String and Macau Virtuosi. He has also served on the faculty of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Since 2009, Leung was appointed the chief conductor of the Macau University of Science and Technology Symphony Orchestra. In 2014 and 2017, Leung was appointed Performing Art Director of Diocesan Girls’ School and Artistic Director and Conductor of Hong Kong PolyU Orchestra. Starting from 2017, Leung is the program director of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Macau-Taiwan Youth Cultural Exchange Festival.

Timothy Sun, a well-known saxophonist

Timothy Sun began his music studies at the age of 7. He studied the saxophone and clarinet with Mr. George Galway at the Ellen Wilkinson High School of Art in England since 1997, and in 2001 became the first Chinese saxophone and clarinet student of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama under a full scholarship for his Bachelor’s degree, where his principal teachers were the world-renowned saxophonists John Harle and Christian Forshaw. He had also worked with clarinettist Julian Farrell and flautist Glen Martin and in 2006 and completed his Master’s degree under a school scholarship and received the highest score in final recital.

In recent seasons, Sun has appeared in more than 100 recitals and orchestral concerts in Asia and Europe. He performed as a soloist with Macau Chinese Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Zhejiang Symphony Orchestra, Guiyang Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Festival Orchestra, Symphonic Cordiality, New Music Ensemble, Citywinds Ensemble, Hong Kong Young Musicians Wind Orchestra, Hong Kong Wind Symphony, PanAsia Symphony Orchestra, Belilios Winds, SIU2, Macau Youth Orchestra and the Macau Youth Symphonic band. He has been interviewed by the South China Morning Post, UK Chinese Times, Macao Daily, Milk, Mr, Esquire, TVB, and the RTHK Radio 4, which broadcasted his live performance. Timothy Sun is one of the artists of the ‘Buffet Group’ and ‘Vandoren Paris’. He is currently a saxophone lecturer coach at the Macau Conservatory, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the Hong Kong Baptist University.