On the afternoon of 17 July 2026, a book signing was held at the Commercial Press (Hong Kong) booth during the 36th Hong Kong Book Fair to celebrate the publication of Tradition and Transmission: Studies of Urban Music in the Greater Bay Area. Published by the Commercial Press (Hong Kong), the volume was edited by Professor Dai Dingcheng of the Faculty of Innovation and Design at City University of Macau. The event was attended by the book's associate editor, Assistant Professor Long I Ian of City University of Macau; contributing author Assistant Professor Leung Chi-hin, Associate Head of the Department of Cultural and Creative Arts at the Education University of Hong Kong; and Zhang Yaqin, Assistant at the Macau Urban Music Research Center of City University of Macau.

Tradition and Transmission: Studies of Urban Music in the Greater Bay Area forms part of the Academic Research Series of the Macau Urban Music Research Center at City University of Macau. The volume brings together selected outstanding research presented at the inaugural "Tradition and Transmission: Studies of Urban Music in the Greater Bay Area" Scholars' Forum and its postgraduate subforum, held in 2025. The book contains thirteen high-quality academic papers, together with an overview of the forum and the complete conference programme. Its contributors include scholars and researchers from universities across the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, Beijing, Taiwan, and other regions. The studies cover a wide range of topics, including music history, folk performing arts, the development of urban music, music education practices, digital music communication, applications of artificial intelligence in music, and cross-cultural musical exchange.

The volume is structured around the two central themes of "tradition" and "transmission". Grounded in a critical review of relevant scholarship, it offers comprehensive and in-depth discussions of Macao's distinctive musical culture, local practices in Hong Kong, the interactive development of urban music across the Greater Bay Area, and various contexts of cross-cultural communication. Moving beyond a static approach to cultural research, the book defines musical tradition as a living cultural system collectively sustained through community activities, institutional structures, educational practices, media dissemination, and regional collaboration. Drawing on a rich range of case studies—including folk songs, early opera, ritual Cantonese opera, digital orchestras, AI-assisted composition for traditional Chinese instruments, and the cross-regional circulation of canonical musical works—the volume presents a multidimensional account of the diverse ways in which urban music in the Greater Bay Area has been transmitted, transformed, renewed, and revitalised amid changing historical and social conditions.

The presentation of the new volume at the Hong Kong Book Fair has brought specialist academic research to a wider readership while further strengthening connections among music research resources and cultural practices in Macao, Hong Kong, and other parts of the Greater Bay Area. By bringing together valuable historical documents, robust fieldwork data, and a wealth of contemporary examples of innovation, the book offers readers a distinctive sonic perspective from which to understand the urban cultures of the Greater Bay Area. It also highlights Macao's unique strategic position and cultural role in fostering exchanges between Chinese and Western musical cultures, promoting academic collaboration across the Greater Bay Area, and contributing to the development of a culturally vibrant Greater Bay Area.

Author: Zhang Yaqin, PhD student in Arts Studies  (musicology) programme, and the assistant at the Macau Urban Music Research Center