World Harmonica Festival '95

on 10 - 13 Oct 95

at Yokohama, Japan

All our awards - 1 first, 2 seconds, 1 third, 1 fifth, 2 sixths.

King's Harmonica Quintet won the second place.

King's Harmonica Quintet was invited to a gala concert.

Ho Pak Cheong wrote about this trip of King's Harmonica Quintet...

Chinese version (in BIG5 code)

1995 is a milestone year for us, the King's Harmonica Quintet.

To us, this is an exciting and memorable year.

During the year, we made a big step forward from our home practicing room to the international concert hall and received great applause from international harmonica players. This is certainly a great reward to our effort throughout the past 8 years.

In an evening 8 years ago, when we were discussing how to maintain our enthusiasm to harmonica in spite of the great pressure from our routine jobs (including Accountant, Doctor, Health Inspector, Computer Programmer and Sales Manager), we quickly came to an unanimous conclusion - grouping ourselves together. Hence there came the birth of the Quintet. Up to now, I still strongly believe that this is the best guarantee.

In October 1995, we took off from Kai Tak Airport to start our trip to Yokohama, Japan to participate in the World Harmonica Festival and the World Harmonica Championships '95. That was our first time to have direct encounter with various harmonica lovers from all over the world. It was as well the first time for Hong Kong to participate in this international event in the past 30 years. This biannual competition has attracted more than 1,000 harmonica players, including both amateurs and professionals, to compete. The organizer has also invited more than 30 internationally renowned masters in harmonica playing as the adjudicators for the Championships. They have also held various concerts and master classes during the 4-day event. One probably cannot imagine how amazing it is to look at Larry Adler playing "Rhapsody in Blue" at the age of 80. I will never forget the unique charismatic Larry's sound when playing his famous song, the "Summertime". No wonder the festival had attracted more than 20,000 audience to come.

There were a total of 16 categories in the Competition. These included Chromatics, Diatonics, Jazz and Folk harmonica categories. They are further sub-divided into solo categories and ensembles of various combinations. We five, together with Dr Poon Chung Keung (the former founding member of the Quintet who had left us for 4 years to complete his PhD Degree in Canada - his position was taken up by Mr Lok Ying Kei, Rocky) had made 7 entries in 5 chromatic harmonica categories. These included Solo, Duo, Trio, Group of 4-6 persons and Harmonica for the Future Categories (Here, Mr Kuan Man Hou had used his bass harmonica to show his extra-ordinary talent). Luckily, we have achieved unexpectedly good results. These includes ONE Champion (Duo), TWO First Runners-up (in Duo and Group of 4-6 person), ONE Second Runner-up (Trio), ONE Fifth position (Category for the Future) and TWO Sixth positions (Solo and Duo). It appeared that we were the greatest winners of the contest among all the competing countries.

We were then immediately invited to have a demonstration concert in front of hundreds of Japanese audience and received high degree of applause. Nevertheless, our most treasured reward would be the opportunities to have direct interchange and discussion with those great masters such as Mr Chamber Huang, Mr Yasuo Watani and Mr Sigmund Groven. Our Quintet's style of performance was greatly appreciated and the special value of this combination is reaffirmed. In the past, the importance of treble harmonica was over-emphasized in a conventional harmonica ensemble group and the other parts are often neglected. In our view, this had jeopardized the potential development of harmonica as a whole. All over the years, what we advocate is a balanced development of various parts of the ensemble including treble, tenor and bass harmonicas. We emphasize on specialization of individual parts of the quintet; each member can acquire the special technique in mastering his own instrument. In return, they can play more sophisticated and melodious music. We hope that this will eventually expand the potential and outreach of the harmonica performing art.

Certainly we will not be contented by these tiny achievements. We always have the wholeheartedly thanks to the various great local masters like Mr Fung On, Mr Lee Sheung Ching and Mr Hui Yau Fong, who have from time to time given us valuable advice. Their hard works in fostering of classical harmonica playing in Hong Kong has definitely influenced us. Although various external and internal factors have adversely affected the development of classical harmonica performing art nowadays, we strongly believed that with wholeheartedly work, we will see a bright future and more people will enjoy the instrument.

For more details on this Festival and the full results of the Championships, please visit Harmonica World.