Hong Kong Music Collection

In order to extensively collect materials related to Hong Kong music, to develop the understandings of preservation of Hong Kong music archive and to encourage studies and researches on Hong Kong music, the Hong Kong Public Libraries, the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) and the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong (CASH) have jointly organized a "Hong Kong Music Collection Campaign" and the campaign has been launched since December 2001.

Through the supports and generous donations from over 180 local musicians and music institutes, the library has successfully collected over 52,000 items of music documents as at the end of May 2008. These valuable items include the manuscripts of music scores, lyrics and opera scripts, audio-visual materials, photos, leaflets, house programmes or posters of musical performance as well as newspaper clippings, etc. After general conservation and cataloguing, these materials will be kept in the Arts Resource Centre of Hong Kong Central Library for reference use by readers and researchers within the library.

So as to introduce these valuable collectibles to the general public and to further promote the campaign, the Arts Resource Centre had regularly organized various kinds of outreach activities during the past few years. These include the "Music Encounter: Exhibition of Ng Tai-kong's works" held in September 2003, "A memorandum of Hong Kong music: The Legend of Six Maestros" the Centre jointly organized with the International Association of Theatre Critics (Hong Kong) in February 2004, "Treasures of Music: An exhibition of Hong Kong music documents collected" in September, "Lyrics exhibition of Richard Lam" in December of the same year, "The Weed Poet --- A memorial exhibition of Harold Han-tseung WEI" held in October 2005, "Convention vs. Refinement: Canto-pop & Hong Kong Culture" the Centre jointly organized with the International Association of Theatre Critics (Hong Kong) in January and February 2006, "Cantonese Narrative Song Naamyam: Hong Kong's Cultural Treasure" jointly organized by the Centre and the Chinese Music Archive of the Department of Music, the Chinese University of Hong Kong in May 2007 and "KEI Shang-tong Music Documents Exhibition" in July of the same year.

Donations of music documents are always welcomed. Any donations and enquiries can be directed to 2921 0259, the Arts Resource Centre of Hong Kong Central Library.