Over the past ten to fifteen years, there has been a trend to perform multicultural choral works in the United States, including Chinese music. Although there are a number of studies about Chinese choral music, there is not much written specifically on Hong Kong choral music. Lin Sheng-shih was one of the most important Hong Kong music leaders in the twentieth century. Lin, an immigrant from mainland China, was a patriotic musician who dedicated his life to promoting Chinese music through his professional career in Hong Kong. This study confirms that he contributed tremendously to his new home.
Chapter One contains a brief historical and sociological background of Hong Kong choral music under British sovereignty and the biographical overview of Lin’s life into four periods from his early life in China to his immigration to Hong Kong. Chapter Two presents findings of Lin’s philosophical beliefs as an educator, composer and conductor through his own writings. Last, Chapter Three contains a discussion and analysis of his compositional styles chronologically with supporting examples from fifteen of his most representative choral works. The analysis leads to a greater understanding of the development of his evolving compositional style, from his continual search for new techniques in Western Classical-Romantic style to his use of Chinese elements with effective and illustrative piano accompaniments. This study illustrates that through his distinctive compositional periods, he combined Chinese idiomatic sonorities with Western compositional techniques in order to create his own voice.