Mr. Lai Cho-tin (1921-1994) was one of Hong Kong’s most respected composers and music directors. Not only had he composed and arranged a large number of popular songs and chorus, but he had also created many film scores and theme songs to locally produced movies and stage plays. Mr. Lai was also active in the promotion of choral music by creating and arranging music for choirs as well as conducting choirs. He was famous in composing Cantonese dialect songs for the choirs too.
HKUL has received the generous donation of 600 pieces of Mr. Lai Cho-tin’s music manuscripts from Ms. May Fu. The manuscripts mainly include Mr. Lai’s composition, chorus, arrangement and accompaniment, where genres comprise film music, foreign songs, Cantonese songs, stage music, etc. With the consent of Ms. Fu, the manuscripts have been digitized and made publicly available online. The aim of this digital collection is to make Mr. Lai’s music scores discoverable and accessible for the benefit of teaching, learning and knowledge sharing. MIDI music files for some pieces are also made available for enhancing knowledge sharing purpose.
This project was supported by the HKU Knowledge Exchange Funding for Impact Project.