Yat Sing Music Club (Portland) is a group of Cantonese opera singers. Founded in 1942, the group still rehearses twice a week in Portland’s Old Town. The group once produced complete Cantonese operas with traditional costumes and a full cast of characters, but eventually scaled down their performances. Yat Sing Music Club performs parts of operas for public events and private parties.
Bio
Yat Sing Music Club (Portland) is a group of Cantonese opera singers. Founded in 1942, the group still rehearses twice a week in Portland’s Old Town, where Portland’s Chinatown has been home to a sizeable Chinese population for generations. This area became a center for Chinese restaurants, businesses and, more recently, the Lan Su Chinese Garden. It was in this historic district that the Yat Sing Music Club, an institution in Portland’s Chinese Community, found its home. Cantonese opera usually features a large cast of warriors, scholars, officials, and/or royalty, which assemble to tell highly dramatized traditional tales. Operas are traditionally accompanied by a number of traditional Chinese stringed instruments including: the pipa (lute), the erhu and goahu (both fiddles) and the yangqin (hammered dulcimer), as well as percussion instruments. Operas typically involve singing and acting as well as acrobatics and martial arts. In the early days, the Yat Sing Music Club produced entire Cantonese operas complete with a full cast in traditional costumes that often show the rank and type of character in the opera. Cost and the sheer number of participants required made it prohibitive to continue those types of performances. Yet the musicians and singers so enjoyed their rehearsals that they continued their twice a week practices. In the 2010s, Yat Sing Music Club, enjoyed an infusion of new talent, which has made performances again possible. In 2016, the Club put on five performances of parts of Cantonese operas. As in the past, these presentations have featured actors/singers dressing in full costumes and makeup. Yat Sing Music Club also performs for community events, weddings, and upon request for the public.
