| An annual Hong Kong Youth Music Camp, a major event organized by the Music Office of Hong Kong Government, was held at St. Stephen's College, Stanley in 1982. During the camp period, members of the Camp Chinese Orchestra sat silently in front of the hall before the in-camp concert of the Camp Symphonic Orchestra started, in order to protest the low attendance for their own concert which had been held two days previously. Moreover, they also expressed their mortification about the low social status of Chinese music. Members of the Camp Chinese Orchestra, who staged the silent protest, were also active members of the Hong Kong Youth Chinese Orchestra, the most important Chinese orchestra of the Music Office. This protest also reflected the fact that the active members of the Hong Kong Youth Chinese Orchestra, who grew up in Hong Kong, had created a mission for themselves and assumed responsibility for the promotion Chinese instrumental ensemble music and the Chinese orchestra.; For the past twenty six years, the Music Office of the Hong Kong Government has created an institutional context for training in Chinese musical instrumental playing and Chinese orchestral playing in Hong Kong. Most of the active ex-members of the Chinese orchestra are still involved in instrumental teaching, and are thus still playing an active role in influencing the music attitudes of their students. Nowadays, Chinese cultural identity in Hong Kong is being promoted in all dimensions especially in those focused on youngsters. Music culture, as an important part of the cultural identity, is involved in this campaign. The aim of this dissertation helps the ethnomusicologists, music educators and later researchers doing research on the cultural identity of the youngsters in Hong Kong.; This dissertation will use the protest in the 1982 music camp as a point of departure and the active ex-members of the Youth Chinese orchestras as the research target in order to analyze their musical identity. The musical identity of the present members is used for comparison with the musical identity of the ex-members. The research is based on data collection, questionnaires and field work. Informants in my field work are the government ex-officials who are involved in cultural policy, staff members and former members of the Music Office, protestors in the 1982 music camp, active former members of Hong Kong Youth Chinese Orchestra, and members of five Youth Chinese Orchestras.; A hypothesis on the establishment of music identity will be proven using the historical, educational, institutional, and cultural and social contexts that influence the establishment of musical identity among the active ex-members of the Chinese youth orchestras and the ways in which they accepted Chinese instrumental ensemble music as their musical preference in their first encounters with it. When the ensemble music awoke their ethnic consciousness, the way they interacted with the music itself and all sort of environmental context. The case of the 1982 Hong Kong Youth Music Camp will be used as a module for examining their involvement, responsibility, mission, mobility and determination in promoting, publicizing and exalting Chinese instrumental ensemble music, and for how they establish their musical identity using Chinese instrumental ensemble music. |
