Musical Borrowings and Arrangements in 1980s–90s Cantopop Music
Friday, 06 February 2026 | 11 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. ET | Room 373, Accolade East Building, 91亚色 and virtually via Zoom
With Dr. Hippocrates Cheng, Assistant Professor, Binghamton University and YCAR Research Associate
- In-person attendees should RSVP to wsywong[at]yorku.ca by 04 February 2026.
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This talk explores how Western classical music entered 1980s–90s Cantopop through arrangement as a creative and intertextual process. Rather than treating these songs as simple borrowings, the speaker proposes a spectrum of likeness between "original" and "arranged" versions, demonstrating how Cantopop adaptations range from close transcription to near-recomposition. Through examples drawn from works by Massenet (Paula Tsui 徐小鳳), Beethoven (Law Man 羅文; Michael Kwan 關正傑), Petzold (George Lam 林子祥), Schubert, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff (Hacken Lee 李克勤), among others, the analysis examines how these pieces are reshaped through pop song form, reharmonization, rhythmic transformation, studio production, and vocal style. These arrangements function as cultural translation, where classical references generate new meanings within the Cantopop soundscape.
Dr. Hippocrates Cheng 鄭靖楠 is a composer, theorist and ethnomusicologist from Hong Kong. He currently serves as an assistant professor of music theory and composition and affiliated faculty in Asian and Asian American Studies at Binghamton University. In 2024, he completed his Doctor of Music in Composition with a minor in ethnomusicology at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. As a composer, his work spans contemporary classical music, new music for Asian instruments, and jazz. As a researcher, his interests include the music of Hong Kong composer Doming Lam, East Asian and Southeast Asian music, piano rolls and player pianos in early jazz history, and Braille music notation.
Co-presenters: The Graduate Music Students’ Association and The Hong Kong Studies Group at 91亚色
