History of our Group

The Harmonica Group was established in 1971, formerly being one of the interest groups of the Wong Tai Sin Community Centre Workgroups. In the beginning, Haletone was founded by several young harmonica enthusiasts in the form of small ensemble. But at that time, the group was not formally named yet. In 1972, the famous harmonica master Mr. Leung Yat-chiu had been joined the group as the harmonica teacher. From that time onwards, the group began their great mission of promoting the art of harmonica music and culture to the public. They were not only taking part in cultural activities and performing voluntary performances in the local community; they were also invited to participate in TV performance programmes

The harmonica group focused on playing pop music at the time of its inception. In 1973, the group took part in a music competition of a TV programme and achieved a very outstanding result. The famous harmonica soloist, Mr. Tsui Tak Ming was the adjudicator of that competition. To heighten the performance techniques of the group members, they invited Mr. Tsui to be the honorary advisor and instructor of the harmonica group.

In 1973, due to the rapid growth of the group members, they formed a committee for the administration of members. Resolved in a committee meeting, the committee members decided to name the group formally as “Haletone Harmonica Orchestra” (hereafter as “Haletone”). Since then, being fostered by Mr. Tsui Tak Ming, Haletone has developed into a chromatic harmonica orchestra and played a wide variety of music. Haletone's repertoire was not only in western music but also included Chinese music. Then, an aggressive reformation for Haletone began.

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Led by conductor, Mr. Chair Wing Lok and former Chairman, Mr. Tsang Kim Kong, Haletone presented a large-scale public concert at the Hong Kong City Hall Theatre in 1984. As a new concept, Haletone was invited to perform a harmonica accompaniment to the Hong Kong Youth Choir at the Tsuen Wan Town Hall in 1985.

In order to enhance training of the harmonica classes, they published the first chromatic harmonica learning book in Hong Kong in 1985. After a lengthy trying period, in 1987 the first edition of the learning book was officially released to the harmonica classes. Haletone was very active from the mid 1970s to the late 1980s. During this period, they organized concerts frequently to provide team members with more performing and practicing opportunities, such as competition performance in the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival. Yielding fruitful results, a number of members were awarded prizes in the competitions of the Music Festival. Unfortunately, after that, Haletone encountered a long period of inactivity.

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In 1999, Haletone set up its own homepage, letting more people know of the art of harmonica music. Meanwhile, Haletone became lively and energetic again.

Since 2004, Haletone has presented numerous performances in various activities. Apart from promoting music art, Haletone also frequently arranged entertainment and leisure activities for members to foster their relationships. After a long inactive period, in February of 2006, Haletone presented a concert “Haletone Harmonica Concert 2006”, at the Lecture Hall of the Hong Kong Space Museum. Then in September of the same year, another concert was held at the assembly hall of Wong Tai Sin Community Centre.

In September of 2006, having resolved in a special meeting of the members, the committee of Haletone was restructured. The new registered name of the group was “Haletone Philharmonica”. In October 2007, led by the present Chairman, Mr. William Wong and conductor, Mr. Law Chong-man, Haletone for the first time used their new registered name, presented their annual harmonica concerts at Shatin Town Hall. With the energetic spirit of the new Haletone generation, in August 2008, they presented other annual harmonica concerts at Sheung Wan Civic Centre.

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To achieve the mission of promoting the art of harmonica music, Haletone held free harmonica seminars for their members, including “Jimmy Chan’s Introductory Seminar on Blues Harp”, “Anthony Lau’s Chromatic Harmonica Seminar” and “Wai Hang-hay’s Chromatic Harmonica Seminar”, etc. After that, they invited the famous chromatic harmonica master, Mr. Anthony Lau to be their honorary advisor.

Aiming to set up a virtual discussion platform through the internet, they invited the harmonica masters, Mr. Anthony Lau, Mr. Jimmy Chan and Mr. Lo Tak-kong to be the moderators of the Chromatic Harmonica, Blues Harp and Tremolo Harmonica Forums respectively on the Haletone Website.

In 2009, the former Haletone fellow and famous harmonica soloist, Mr. Ng Tak-mon returned to Haletone and took up the duties of orchestra conductor.

Since 1971, Haletone has been serving the community for over 38 years; and arranged harmonica training for thousands of people. Although they encountered great difficulties during the development stages, by the great effort of their enthusiastic group members, Haletone has been growing steadily. The new Haletone generation will vigorously connect and coordinate with other harmonica organizations and encourage their group members to enrol in local and international harmonica activities. In the future, aiming at their traditional mission, Haletone will keep working hard and endeavour to train and strengthen the harmonica playing skill of its members; and through diversified and popularized activities, promote the culture of harmonica art to the community.