Kai-Young is currently the Principal Investigator of a project titled "From Constraints to Creativity: Musical Inventions through the Cantonese Contour in the Hong Kong Choral Arts." The project focuses on how composers can write intelligible melodies and choral textures in the tonal Cantonese language, in which the maintenance of textual intelligibility poses constraints on pitch structure. Addressing the perceptual and creative aspects, this project will show how Hong Kong composers work with instead of against the linguistic constraints to create a new music that is at once comprehensible and expressive. This project is supported by the Early Career Grant from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council and the Direct Grant from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).

The project has led to the development of a database of Cantonese choral works, a Cantonese melody generator, and an interface for intelligible music intervals for different tone combinations, all of which aims to lower the barriers of Cantonese music composition and allow musicians from around the world to discover the Cantonese repertoire. Learn more about the project on https://www.cantonesecomposition.com
​

Photos by Kelvin Ng