Behind-the-mic at the EWVS 2025:

Lily Lai (EFP) is a Cantonese pop singer-songwriter. She is a full member of the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong. She first started her music journey as a resident singer and performer. Having discovered her enthusiasm in voice training in recent years, Lily now works as a vocal coach of pop singing in Hong Kong.

Cantonese, spoken by over 80 million people in the world, has a complex tone system that has always been a challenge for many Cantopop singer-songwriters. Not only because of its block-word structure, but also because of its special tonal system. As a singer-songwriter who writes lyrics in Cantonese, Lily often encounter some issues related to singing and articulations thanks to the language’s distinguishing features.

Based on the results of the pop music awards of Hong Kong in recent years, there is a tendency to use Cry Quality and soft high notes in Cantopop songs. Knowing that we have different options in Estill Figures which can help address all the above-mentioned issues, strategies in EVT which are useful for writing and performing Cantonese songs will be elaborated in the presentation “Application of Estill Voice Training (EVT) for Cantopop Singer-songwriters in Hong Kong.”

The application of the strategies, in her opinion, does not only change the way she composes and writes lyrics in Cantonese, but also the way she interprets Cantopop. Soundtracks and examples will be shown in the presentation.

★ Join us at the Estill World Voice Symposium 2025! Come experience inspiring presentations like this one — and so much more — live in Chicago from July 27–29, 2025. Get your tickets here and visit the official symposium page for all the details, including speakers, performers, and schedule. We can’t wait to welcome you!