INTERNATIONAL HONOR
FROM PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

Written on May 19, 2013 · Prague, Czech Republic
by Jiří Laburda

Dear Wing,
On your photo I have seen the nice young woman. Yes this woman is really pretty, but in other way – it seems – I went wrong. In the meantime I tried little to get acquainted with you. And if I am able right understand (with my terrible English!) your biography, I am learning, that you have founded:
1) Hong Kong Music and Performing School (HKMPS),
2) Hong Kong Music and Performing Association (HKMPA),
3) Hong Kong Music and Performing Foundation (HKMPF)
and you have been organizing the
4) Hong Kong International Summer Music Camp at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
If this all is really true, it could be not possible, that all such great things have realized the young girl and that I am in contact with the “matured” very important artistic personality of the musical life in Hong Kong. Thank you very much for it.
Yes, I very much agree with you, that Music is the very important universial language! But I want add, that it concerns only the really MUSICAL ART, not the commercial music. Sorry as to the very sorrowful experience of our European countries, here the commercial music tried to replace the classical musical art. In such way the musical art fades away and disappears and all is changing to great cultural tragedy. I understand, that it is not actual in your Asian countries yet, but in Europe it is more and more terrible!
This is the reason, that I consider your activities, especially your Hong Kong International Summer Music Camps, for extraordinary important, in order that the classical musicians must to collaborate and must be organized for the defense the musical art before the aggressive commercial various types of omnipresent pop music.
Your Hong Kong International Summer Music Camps are surely very important artistic beneficial events, but sorry (in my 82 years) I am a very old man already and therefore it is sure, that I will be not able, to have the honour of getting acquainted with you personally. Very sorry!!
Very best wishes to you from Prague
sincerely yours
Jiří Laburda.

Written@2013 · Prague, Czech Republic
by Jiří Laburda

“I prefer very much the contact with the good musicians and it seems, you are surely such one! In Asia do be the excellent classical musician.”

“I cannot believe such a young musician could have a strong artistic personality.”

“You do be realizing the great idea, which is of the extraordinary aesthetic and ethic importance not only for the present, but especially for the future.”

Jiří Laburda

Jiří Laburda, composer, author, music educator, musicologist and philosopher, born on April 3, 1931 Sobeslav, Czech Republic. After graduating from grammar school, he studied at the Faculty of Education of Charles University in Prague. He studied music theory and composition privately with Karel Hába, Zdenek Hůla and Eduard Herzog. He first taught at pedagogical schools in Jablonec nad Nisou and Cheb. In 1961, he became an assistant professor for musical theory subjects at the Department of Music Education, Faculty of Pedagogy, Charles University in Prague.

In 1970, he defended his dissertation on the theme of D. D. Shostakovich’s Symphony and received a doctorate in philosophy. Due to political reasons, he could not defend his graduate thesis Didactic problems of modern harmony textbooks, but he later followed it up when preparing the university textbook Diatonic Harmony, which was published in 1980–1983.

From 1999 he taught music theory subjects at the Prague Conservatory. He was also active organizationally. He was a member of the committee of the Society of Czech Composers, the association Přítomnost, a member of the Children’s Commission of the Association of Czechoslovak Composers and the chairman of the Association for Contemporary Music Collegium 2001. In 2004, he was elected president of the Festival of Amateur Choirs in Svitavy.

He usually uses traditional means of expression in his work. Stylistically, it follows neoclassicism. He uses the latest compositional techniques such as aleatorics or twelve-tone systems very sparingly. His work has received numerous international awards.