Tonight when Maestro Yan Hui-chang lifts his baton to lead a huge ensemble of musicians from Hong Kong and Zhejiang, he will have touched yet another milestone in a long and distinguished career. Yan spoke to Chitralekha Basu in the lead-up to the concert to celebrate 65 years of the People's Republic.

When Maestro Yan Hui-chang picks up his baton to conduct tonight's season-opening concert of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra (HKCO), he will evoke the spirit of harmony and integration befitting 65 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

"The aim is to strengthen the relationship between Hong Kong and the mainland," said Yan in an exclusive interview with China Daily.

HKCO and Zhejiang Orchestra come together tonight. The centerpiece of tonight's performance - Caprice on Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, composed by Liu Yuan and Jiang Ying - is inspired by the curious journey of a Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) landscape by Huang Gongwang, who lived in the Fuchun Mountains, southwest of Hangzhou, in his twilight years. The 691 cm-long scroll, painted between 1348 and 1351, changed hands many times. Eventually, a jealous owner set it ablaze, believing he might carry the treasured image into his next life, searing it down the middle. Now a part of it is in Zhejiang Provincial Museum, Hangzhou, the other in Taipei.

Tonight, even as the audience hears the rousing opening bars of Caprice they will see Huang Gongwang's landscape projected onto a giant screen. "We would be interpreting the image through music in a way that the image and the music complement each other," informs Yan. With over 130 musicians on board, it's the balancing of sounds that could get tricky and will need special attention.

Yan is no stranger to leading prodigious numbers though. In 2001, Yan set a Guinness World Record by conducting 1,000 erhu (two-stringed fiddle) players. In 2003, he out-did his own feat by leading 3,000 players on the drum, at a special event to re-kindle hope in the hearts of a SARS-afflicted population. Yan was the youngest Class One conductor in China at 33 in 1987, and has led all the major Chinese orchestras on the mainland and Hong Kong.

Much has been written about the flute-playing cowherd from a village in Shaanxi. Yan's exceptional talent and dedication to music has taken him places. Stories about how he was offered two jobs - as principal ban hu (bowed string instrument) player in a musical group and music teacher at Heyang high school - even before he completed high school have become legendary.

His current ambition is to "make a lasting contribution to Chinese music by nurturing the younger generations". His classes for aspiring conductors held across China and Europe are always well-attended.

Chew Hee-chiat, resident conductor at HKCO, says he is amazed by Yan's unflagging energy. "In Singapore recently, he led workshops with young musicians continuously for two days and on the third day was back for a whole day of rehearsals. I would have collapsed if I was in his place," says Chew.

Yan's biographer Oliver Chou - who interviewed him over 40 hours and two weeks - is astonished that Yan could "tell his life story entirely off the top of his head, never having to consult notes or reference material" and still be accurate.

Peng Xiuwen, Yan's mentor, will be remembered at the concert. "He is a great composer and conductor, and much of what I have learnt was from sitting in his classes," says Yan.

As a tribute to the man who "left his mark in every step of the development of the Chinese orchestra", Yan has lined up a number of compositions by Peng, including Twelve Months, Spring Capriccio, The Indomitable, and Su Wu. "It's an occasion to revisit the numbers that might have faded in public memory," says Yan.

Chou says this concert is an opportunity to hear "how Peng's works sound on reformed instruments". Peng, he says, was an advocate of instrumental reform - a legacy Yan has carried forward. Yan's role in evolving an environment-friendly range of traditional Chinese instruments - including the more than 1,000-year-old huqin (spike fiddle) - is hailed as a major step towards adapting tradition to suit present-day concerns.

Contact the writer at basu@chinadailyhk.com Wang Yuke contributed to the story.

(HK Edition 09/19/2014 page7)