What is China Pride?
China Pride Studio is a wholly owned subsidiary of Alfa Yan Ltd., a private company incorporated in Hong Kong in 1986. The Chinese name of the company is 歐飛燕; contrary to common belief, this is not the name of a woman. The true meaning of the company name, which reflects the background and aspirations of its founder is, 歐洲飛翔的燕子。Alfa Yan has since incorporation always been a quiet, low profile office management private set-up without any public presence. China Pride Studio was formed in 2006 to serve the founder's emerging and fast maturing pursuits in art, culture, language, music, photography and video film, essentially as amateur hobbies.
Why China Pride?
It was the vision of its founder in 2005 that the average Chinese man walking down the streets of Central on Hong Kong island was a very different cut from the pig-tailed gentry wielding an opium gun in his left hand in the 1840s. A new generation of Chinese people naturally embedding traditional Chinese conservatism, piety and propriety values but brought up in Western Europe education and culture environment can be a combination of the best of both worlds and set the path for the next round of evolution in human civilization.
Everything that has a beginning has an end, and the Three Tenors is no exception. Our founder is a great lover of Italian opera, and the sad reality that the Three Tenors cannot last for ever is constant on his mind. By 2005 Domingo was beginning to age with dignity, though the career path ahead was still clear and long. Carrera and Pavarotti had different health issues on and off flashing up in newspaper reports. And the China Olympic was to come up. Time seemed right to introduce to the world a public voice-symphony concert of French and Italian opera with some Chinese tenors commanding international stature, as much as the impending China Olympic Games looked set to take the world by storm. La cina e' arrivata - China has arrived!
Birth of a Chinese legend
One man’s vision of a concert soon found its way onto the drafting desk. The event would be known as "The Chinese Tenors 中國人的驕傲，男高音古典音樂會。" Though three leading tenors from Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong were chosen for the performance, the word "three" did not appear in the title of the event; this was a decision of creativity which part of the audience well understood. China Pride was specifically formed to launch this project. The concert took 3 years to materialize from the drawing board. It was all one man's vision, dedication and hands-on hard work without support from any government or public institution. The Beijing Olympics came and went in 2008, as did the Chinese Tenors Concert in 2009; similar but in different ways, they took quite a few communities by pleasant surprise. Since 2009 China Pride has moved on to new dimensions, as evidenced in this website. A delighting note to close on is the fact that the inspiration of China Pride in the Chinese Tenors concert has been taken on by two of the original three artists who form a new team of Three Chinese Tenors which is gradually commanding the international acclaim and respect they deserve. Congratulations to their efforts, and, viva cina.
January 2013.