1. WHY – your vision, objectives in engaging the community; what do you want to achieve?

A performing arts group – especially one which include the city’s name, or receives Government funding, has the obligation to be a part of the community. 

Being a part of the community means –

1. You know the audience and the audience knows you. You offer something to the community and the community accepts you. It is a two-way affair.
2. You are a leader in the art form and you champion the cause of the particular art form in terms of artistic excellence.
3. You nurture and develop the art form in the society.
   (Hong Kong Sinfonietta receives funding from the Home Affairs Bureau and is one of the 9 major performing arts groups in Hong Kong.)

2. WHAT – through what means and activities you try to realize your objectives?

Whatever the product of the performing arts group is, it has to be first and foremost good in quality. So contrary to common mistaken belief, it is not 'what sells', but 'what is good'.

Arts in the community is a kind of 'soft education', something without a visible framework - something done through osmosis and inspiration. So what the group does - Concerts, events, products have to make sense to the people in the city. The product has to somehow be in-line with the society make-up, the educational structure, the general taste of the city, and something that can grow with the society.

(Hong Kong Sinfonietta tailor makes concerts and events according to the situation in Hong Kong. After continuous and intensive inhouse research, concerts are segmented for different types of audiences and yet linked in the wider sense of mission and vision.)

3. HOW – key to success, innovative ways?

If you do the “WHAT” right, the “HOW' will come naturally. How well the group understands the society, how much the group has done its research, will show in the final execution and the product. 

We believe that people in the society can tell whether a group's product is done whole-heartedly for them or just imported for box-ticking. Hong Kong Sinfonietta broke many conventions in classical music performances as we made our Music Director/conductor turn round to not only address, but interact with the audience; changed the meaning of 'pre-concert talks' and 'open rehearsals'...etc, all to make things more suitable for the audience in Hong Kong. 

(Hong Kong Sinfonietta understands that engaging an audience never means “talking down” or “dumbing down”. We avoid the usage of formal words such as “education” because of its connotation of being “formal” and “strict” – as most of our experiences in Hong Kong are. We also try to look more at young adults/families instead of children for our community/audience development programmes.)

4. What is/ are your methods to evaluate the events’ achievements/ outcomes?

become one of the orchestras which Hong Kong people recognise to be “growing up” with them. Still sporting our original slogan from the beginning : 'investing in a cultural tomorrow', we wish to convince and remind people that classical music is one of the things that is worth investing in for life.

Throughout the years, we have grown to performing more than 100 times last season, with a continuing and stable increase in audience numbers (97% average last season). Although this is a serious stamp of approval, we still internally review each and every project/concert in detail because we understand that the number of audience member itself is not the whole indicator of whether a project/concert is as good as it should and can be. Constructive messages from the audiences and reviewers are also considered in our evaluation.

5. What insights you derived and/ or lessons learned from your engagement with the community?

There are two important learnings:

Margaret Yang
CEO
Hong Kong Sinfonietta