A Parting Letter from Mr. Alex Kwok, teacher advisor of the LSC School Orchestra
I like music and sing in parish choir. I was never a player of any instrument. (Though I have to admit that I did put my hands in the violin when I was dating my future wife during her college life.) It was when I was still teaching in the Old La Salle Building that I first heard a few La Salle boys playing “Butterfly Lovers”. Their technique was good and they put up some solo performance during the Annual Speech Days in the Old La Salle Building. On one such Speech Day, the soloist made a surprised request to Brother Raphael, in front of all the guests and parents, to grant $10,000 to set up an orchestra. The money was granted and instruments were bought …
One day, out of curiosity, I entered the Music Room, which was at the back stage of the school hall. I bumped into some instruments lying around, apparently unattended to for a long time. I picked one up, a cello and saved it to the New La Salle Building. (I had given up violin because I knew very well that I would never catch my girlfriend up in violin.) My first performance, playing simple long notes among other student players, was an arrangement of “Un Banc, Un Arbre, Une Rue”, a piano solo piece played by Ignatius Chan, accompanied by La Salle School Orchestra! The student conductor, Wylie, arranged the music. In fact, I was not able to play the School Song properly. I was new and did not have sufficient mastery of the instrument! Later, I took up the conducting instead, asking my wife to arrange pieces of music for the performance in the Annual Speech Days. Years gone by and we began to play the original scores!
In 1993, our principal violinist, Cheng Ka Ming was awarded the SCMP Student Musician of the Year among 12 finalists. I went to Malaysia in November for 8 days and missed the Speech Day. Ms. Grace Wu helped them out. Under the leadership of Cheng Ka Ming, they (15 in all) took part for the first time in the 46th School Music Festival (1994), Intermediate String Orchestra Competition, came second without a conductor with a score of 82 marks, 5 marks behind the Wah Yan (Kowloon) team.
On February 28th, 1995, we took part in the same section with 21 members, again without a conductor. (In fact, ever since our coming second in 1994, the Association of Schools Music Festival changed the rule, requiring a minimum of 21 members to enrol!) The competition took place in the Shatin Town Hall. Our major rivals were: Wah Yan who played Edward Elgar’s “Serenade for Strings”, scoring 88 and came first; DGS played T. Osborne computer music “Bytes and Pieces” got the third with a score of 82. St. Stephen, Stanley, who played Mozart’s Divertimento (K136), also came third. We played Benjamin Britten’s “Simple Symphony”, which was in fact not simple at all, and scored 87!
After the competition, the DBS orchestra, who was the only participant in the Advanced section discovered that the piece Wah Yan played was a set piece 2 years ago; thus violating the rule. It was in fact the fault of the Association for not warning Wah Yan when they submitted their choice piece! On April 11th, after the winners’ performance concert, the Association notified Wah Yan of their breach of rule and on May 1st, the Feast Day of St. Joseph the Worker, we were informed of our being upgraded to the First Place. We won on technicality!
Alex C. K. Kwok
Picture Credit: The LaSallites (1995), pp. 214-15
