Hong Kong group brings ancient Silk Road murals’ musical depictions to life

Once a vital crossroads of the Silk Road, the historic oasis of Dunhuang remains a crown jewel of Gansu province in northwest China. It is home to the Mogao Caves, a Unesco-listed complex representing over a millennium of Buddhist devotion, from the Northern Liang to the Yuan dynasties.

Generations of Dunhuangologists have poured over the cultural secrets woven into the elaborate murals inside the 492 preserved caves, including depictions of 4,500 musical instruments and 500 ensembles that are a silent record of the rich acoustic tradition accompanying the historic pursuit of enlightenment.

Since 2018, a group of musicians in Hong Kong has dedicated themselves to bringing that music to life.

The Hong Kong Gaudeamus Dunhuang Ensemble (HKGDE) was founded by Leonie Ki Man-fung, an advertising guru and business executive turned philanthropist who has visited Dunhuang 22 times.

“My biggest dream is for more Chinese [people] in Hong Kong to learn about their culture,” says Ki, who stresses the ensemble’s apolitical, culture-first approach to promoting Chinese soft power.

Recently, the HKGDE became one of just 16 Hong Kong arts groups to land a venue partnership with the government’s Leisure and Culture Services Department (LCSD), which will give them priority booking for facilities, marketing and programmes at Sha Tin Town Hall.

It is a significant milestone for the eight-year-old ensemble, and one of a number of official recognitions of its role as cultural ambassador.

In 2022, it received funding from the China National Arts Fund for a programme series titled “A Dialogue between Dunhuang and the Palace Museum Across 2,000 Years of Chinese Cultural Heritage”, and it has been touring extensively in mainland China, Japan, the UK and France. The ensemble will head to Bangkok in March.

Despite its apolitical mission, the ensemble was also invited by the Chinese embassy in Canada to conduct a multi-city concert tour with the explicit aim of rebuilding China-Canada relations following a 2018 incident that saw Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of the technology firm’s founder, detained upon arrival in Vancouver and subsequently arrested on a US extradition request over fraud allegations.

The HKGDE team includes composers-in-residence Kam Shing-hei and Chu Kai-yeung. Kam also acts as artistic coordinator.

Relics and manuscripts from Dunhuang’s Library Cave and murals offer glimpses into Tang dynasty music. These serve as an invaluable archive for researching the compositions of instruments including the pipa, sheng and guzheng.

Both Kam and Chu have visited Dunhuang multiple times to immerse themselves in the culture before translating the mural imagery into compositions. Unlike the older, buttoned-up musicians associated with traditional Chinese music, the two composers bring modern energy to ancient music as artists in their late twenties and early thirties.

“We’re not recreating Tang dynasty music – we’re creating contemporary music and new compositions,” Kam says.

“However, we do utilise some ancient instruments, specifically those reconstructed based on the murals … and we’ve simultaneously incorporated ancient musical scores into our work – specifically ancient pipa scores unearthed at Dunhuang.” Adaptation and textual mediation are central to the ensemble’s work, he adds.

After obtaining a degree in composition and electronic music at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA), Kam studied Buddhism for his master’s degree at the University of Hong Kong, giving him a deeper understanding of the Dunhuang murals.

But it is not easy to bring the past into the present when many of the depicted instruments no longer exist.

“Instruments tend to evolve with musical trends to better suit contemporary music,” says Chu, who is also an HKAPA alumnus.

Chu takes the Tang dynasty sheng – a 3,000-year-old mouth-blown instrument – as an example.

“It’s not like playing a piano, where it goes do re mi … not a single note on the sheng plays in this sequence. So it’s quite an intriguing task when we’re working out how to translate and contemporise these ancient pieces – it’s like detective work.”

Kam adds: “Numerous scholars have translated these ancient scores, resulting in many differing versions and considerable debate over which interpretations are correct … but we’ve taken elements from various ones to create entirely new compositions.”

Ki hopes that the HKGDE will encourage people to pick up more Chinese instruments, instead of just the usual piano and violin that Hong Kong children are often rigorously trained in.

She adds that Sha Tin Town Hall is an ideal venue due to its focus on Cantonese opera. In 2025, the group gave a well-received performance there as part of the city’s Chinese Culture Festival, and Ki hopes that the venue will help them strengthen their audience base.

She notes that Hong Kong audiences are generally less engaged and curious about their performances than those in mainland China. While mainland Chinese audiences eagerly participate in post-performance talks and seek photos, Hongkongers rarely “critique or share their opinions”, a trend she hopes will change.

Ki believes that the HKGDE transcends traditional preconceptions of Chinese culture, citing a Shanghainese audience member who remarked that the group possesses a distinct “Western flair”.

“I told them that being cosmopolitan is something Hongkongers are born with – one country, two systems. We are a fusion of Eastern and Western cultures. So wherever we go, people find us fascinating.”