"Saan Yaam"
2025.07.05 (Sat) 8pm
Concessionary tickets are available for full-time students, senior citizens aged 60 or above, people with disabilities and the minder and Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) recipients (Concessionary tickets at $220 each are available on a first come, first served basis.) Concessionary tickets holders must produce evidence of their identity or age upon admission.
Ticketing Enquiries and Customer Service:
3166 1100
Telephone Booking: 3166 1288
Internet Booking: www.urbtix.hk
Mobile App Booking: URBTIX
- The performance runs approximately 1 hour 15 minutes.
- Free seating.
- Audiences under the age of 3 will not be admitted.
- Programme enquiries: team@jazz.org.hk
“Like wind, far away, but with a depth like a rumbling of the earth.”
—Yasunari Kawabata
The wind has its voice; the trees, the streams and the birds too—but what of the mountain?
When we gaze upon Hong Kong’s undulating peaks, a profound hum seems to emanate from deep within the earth. Is it the tremor of tectonic plates shifting? The cadence of wind carving its way through rocky crevices? Or the awakening frequencies of millennia-old sedimentary layers, stirring with forgotten memories?
Saan Yaam (in Cantonese, the sound of the mountain) brings together music director Alan Kwan, new media artist Henry Chu, and jazz saxophonist Scott Murphy in a cross-disciplinary exploration of Hong Kong’s mountainous essence.
Chu’s kinetic installation gives shape to the mountain’s tangible contours and traces the invisible paths of the wind. Kwan and Murphy’s original jazz compositions, inspired by Kowloon’s Eight Mountains, intertwine to form a virtual soundscape—an “artificial canyon” where music and visuals merge.
Here, the hum of metallic kinetic engines, seismic basslines echoing the heartbeat of bedrock, and the mountain’s imagined voice converge into a sensory journey, inviting us to contemplate - as we seek to hear the voice of the mountain, are we truly listening to the whispers of the earth—or are we hearing the echoes of our own longing?
Jazz Society is the venue partner of East Kowloon Cultural Centre
Saan Yaam is one of the "Unbox EKCC" trial programmes of the East Kowloon Cultural Centre
The content of this programme does not reflect the views of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department
Artistic Director, Composer, Guitarist
Alan Kwan is recognised worldwide as a multi-talented guitarist, composer, and producer. Under Kwan’s leadership, the band Invisible Architecture, which debuted in 2021 with the album Between Now and Never, won the Golden Melody Award (GMA) for Best Instrumental Album Producer and received three additional nominations. Kwan’s first album, Petrichor, also earned three nominations at the 31st GMA. In 2024, Kwan collaborated with Japanese pianist Masaki Hayashi to release a duo jazz album Liquid Sunshine, which is featured on multiple Apple Music editorial playlists.
Kwan performs and records with many of the world’s leading musicians, including Billy Childs, Ulf Wakenius, Yotam Silberstein, Stefan Karlsson, Dayna Stephens, Fabian Almazan, Linda May Han Oh, Johnathan Blake, Orlando Le Fleming, Reuben James, Glenn Zaleski, Paul Bollenback, Rogerio Boccato, Kazumi Watanabe, Lisa Ono, and Sugizo, among others.
Kwan regularly conducts masterclasses worldwide and has been invited by the Musicians Institute as a Visiting Artist for its Masterclass Series. He collaborates with prominent instrument and gear makers, serving as artists for Eventide, JAM Pedals, Westville Guitars, Yamaoka Guitars, Stringjoy, and VEMURAM. His music transcends traditional boundaries, with compositions featured in films, television and visual art projects, solidifying his reputation as a trailblazing artist in modern jazz.
Henry Chu
New Media Artist
Henry Chu is a Hong Kong–based designer, programmer, and digital artist. He is a graduate from the Electrical and Computer Engineering programme at the University of Auckland and founded pill & pillow in 2004. The independent studio has won more than 200 local and international awards including recognition at the Cannes Lions, Webby, and One Show.
Harnessing data, music and body movements, his art has been exhibited in museums, including Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011), M+ Museum, Hong Kong (2020) and a solo show at Hong Kong Museum of Art, titled Portrait Play (2022 to 2023). In 2021 he presented Blockchain Piano in the inaugural edition of Digital Art Fair Asia, converting crypto prices into music in real-time, allowing visitors to buy crypto through playing a song. In 2022, his installation work SURIV in group show Medicine and Healthcare Through the Lens of Digital Art at the Hong Kong University employed real-time Covid data in a colourful, gamified concept which drew attention to the ongoing contemporary struggle against infections. Major 2023 projects include commissions from Audemars Piguet, Bank of China and The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Medicine to create a series of digital artworks and installations. In 2023, he partnered with Ora-Ora, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and composer Elliot Leung Ho-yat on the visuals for the groundbreaking live performance of Metaverse Symphony. He has shown with Ora-Ora at Art Basel Hong Kong and in exhibitions including Buds that May (2023), A Digital Rhythm (2025). Until June 2025, his Canto Cocktail (2020), a screen-based interactive karaoke-inspired artwork drawing on shared Cantonese/Cantopop cultural memories, is on display at M+.
Scott Murphy
Composer, Jazz Saxophone
Scott Murphy is an award-winning saxophonist, composer and band leader from Scotland now living in Asia. Attempting to find fresh sounds and connect emotionally with audiences, Scott has become an artist with a globally recognised reach.
Since relocating to Hong Kong in 2018, Scott has had the pleasure of appearing alongside multiple Grammy™ winners, world acclaimed jazz artists and numerous Pop stars. Highlights include recordings/appearances with Kendrick Scott, Will Vinson, Janek Gwizdala, Hins Cheung, George Lam, Rubberband, Billy Ocean and many more incredible musicians.
Scott has composed music for almost as long as he has played music with multiple commissions from organisations including the BBC and festivals such as the Hong Kong Freespace Jazz Festival. His most recent project a dream of form features entirely new compositions written for an all-star group including worldwide bass icon Janek Gwizdala, groundbreaking keyboard star Daniel Chu and genre defining drummer Padget “Fresh Kid” Nanton III.
Thomas Lo
Technical Director, Co-producer
Director of 432 1 Music and Recording Engineer of the Q2 Sound Studio, Thomas Lo studied with the legendary recording engineer and record producer Al Schmitt in the Capitol Studios, Los Angeles. He was involved in the production of several hundred pop songs, including pop artists Eason Chan, Karen Mok, G.E.M., Terence Lam, Kay Tse, Chet Lam, Yoyo Sham, Gigi Leung, etc. He has been nominated four times for The Best Recording Engineer in Chinese Music Awards and won in 2013. In 2015, the album he recorded was also nominated for the Golden Melody Award for Best Vocal Recording Album.
In 2017, he founded music production company 432 1 Music and has collaborated with different arts organisations and groups in Hong Kong for audio, video and arts tech projects, including Hong Kong Arts Festival, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Fringe Club, Jazz World (HK) and East Kowloon Cultural Centre etc.
“Like wind, far away, but with a depth like a rumbling of the earth.”
—Yasunari Kawabata
The wind has its voice; the trees, the streams and the birds too—but what of the mountain?
When we gaze upon Hong Kong’s undulating peaks, a profound hum seems to emanate from deep within the earth. Is it the tremor of tectonic plates shifting? The cadence of wind carving its way through rocky crevices? Or the awakening frequencies of millennia-old sedimentary layers, stirring with forgotten memories?
Saan Yaam (in Cantonese, the sound of the mountain) brings together music director Alan Kwan, new media artist Henry Chu, and jazz saxophonist Scott Murphy in a cross-disciplinary exploration of Hong Kong’s mountainous essence.
Chu’s kinetic installation gives shape to the mountain’s tangible contours and traces the invisible paths of the wind. Kwan and Murphy’s original jazz compositions, inspired by Kowloon’s Eight Mountains, intertwine to form a virtual soundscape—an “artificial canyon” where music and visuals merge.
Here, the hum of metallic kinetic engines, seismic basslines echoing the heartbeat of bedrock, and the mountain’s imagined voice converge into a sensory journey, inviting us to contemplate - as we seek to hear the voice of the mountain, are we truly listening to the whispers of the earth—or are we hearing the echoes of our own longing?
Jazz Society is the venue partner of East Kowloon Cultural Centre
Saan Yaam is one of the "Unbox EKCC" trial programmes of the East Kowloon Cultural Centre
The content of this programme does not reflect the views of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department
Artistic Director, Composer, Guitarist
Alan Kwan is recognised worldwide as a multi-talented guitarist, composer, and producer. Under Kwan’s leadership, the band Invisible Architecture, which debuted in 2021 with the album Between Now and Never, won the Golden Melody Award (GMA) for Best Instrumental Album Producer and received three additional nominations. Kwan’s first album, Petrichor, also earned three nominations at the 31st GMA. In 2024, Kwan collaborated with Japanese pianist Masaki Hayashi to release a duo jazz album Liquid Sunshine, which is featured on multiple Apple Music editorial playlists.
Kwan performs and records with many of the world’s leading musicians, including Billy Childs, Ulf Wakenius, Yotam Silberstein, Stefan Karlsson, Dayna Stephens, Fabian Almazan, Linda May Han Oh, Johnathan Blake, Orlando Le Fleming, Reuben James, Glenn Zaleski, Paul Bollenback, Rogerio Boccato, Kazumi Watanabe, Lisa Ono, and Sugizo, among others.
Kwan regularly conducts masterclasses worldwide and has been invited by the Musicians Institute as a Visiting Artist for its Masterclass Series. He collaborates with prominent instrument and gear makers, serving as artists for Eventide, JAM Pedals, Westville Guitars, Yamaoka Guitars, Stringjoy, and VEMURAM. His music transcends traditional boundaries, with compositions featured in films, television and visual art projects, solidifying his reputation as a trailblazing artist in modern jazz.
Henry Chu
New Media Artist
Henry Chu is a Hong Kong–based designer, programmer, and digital artist. He is a graduate from the Electrical and Computer Engineering programme at the University of Auckland and founded pill & pillow in 2004. The independent studio has won more than 200 local and international awards including recognition at the Cannes Lions, Webby, and One Show.
Harnessing data, music and body movements, his art has been exhibited in museums, including Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011), M+ Museum, Hong Kong (2020) and a solo show at Hong Kong Museum of Art, titled Portrait Play (2022 to 2023). In 2021 he presented Blockchain Piano in the inaugural edition of Digital Art Fair Asia, converting crypto prices into music in real-time, allowing visitors to buy crypto through playing a song. In 2022, his installation work SURIV in group show Medicine and Healthcare Through the Lens of Digital Art at the Hong Kong University employed real-time Covid data in a colourful, gamified concept which drew attention to the ongoing contemporary struggle against infections. Major 2023 projects include commissions from Audemars Piguet, Bank of China and The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Medicine to create a series of digital artworks and installations. In 2023, he partnered with Ora-Ora, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and composer Elliot Leung Ho-yat on the visuals for the groundbreaking live performance of Metaverse Symphony. He has shown with Ora-Ora at Art Basel Hong Kong and in exhibitions including Buds that May (2023), A Digital Rhythm (2025). Until June 2025, his Canto Cocktail (2020), a screen-based interactive karaoke-inspired artwork drawing on shared Cantonese/Cantopop cultural memories, is on display at M+.
Scott Murphy
Composer, Jazz Saxophone
Scott Murphy is an award-winning saxophonist, composer and band leader from Scotland now living in Asia. Attempting to find fresh sounds and connect emotionally with audiences, Scott has become an artist with a globally recognised reach.
Since relocating to Hong Kong in 2018, Scott has had the pleasure of appearing alongside multiple Grammy™ winners, world acclaimed jazz artists and numerous Pop stars. Highlights include recordings/appearances with Kendrick Scott, Will Vinson, Janek Gwizdala, Hins Cheung, George Lam, Rubberband, Billy Ocean and many more incredible musicians.
Scott has composed music for almost as long as he has played music with multiple commissions from organisations including the BBC and festivals such as the Hong Kong Freespace Jazz Festival. His most recent project a dream of form features entirely new compositions written for an all-star group including worldwide bass icon Janek Gwizdala, groundbreaking keyboard star Daniel Chu and genre defining drummer Padget “Fresh Kid” Nanton III.
Thomas Lo
Technical Director, Co-producer
Director of 432 1 Music and Recording Engineer of the Q2 Sound Studio, Thomas Lo studied with the legendary recording engineer and record producer Al Schmitt in the Capitol Studios, Los Angeles. He was involved in the production of several hundred pop songs, including pop artists Eason Chan, Karen Mok, G.E.M., Terence Lam, Kay Tse, Chet Lam, Yoyo Sham, Gigi Leung, etc. He has been nominated four times for The Best Recording Engineer in Chinese Music Awards and won in 2013. In 2015, the album he recorded was also nominated for the Golden Melody Award for Best Vocal Recording Album.
In 2017, he founded music production company 432 1 Music and has collaborated with different arts organisations and groups in Hong Kong for audio, video and arts tech projects, including Hong Kong Arts Festival, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Fringe Club, Jazz World (HK) and East Kowloon Cultural Centre etc.