Concert Under the Stars

Fantastic finish to Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture Finale!

I miss going to concerts... but how about an outdoor concert? I jumped at the chance, and so did 10,199 other people with the Hong Kong Philharmonic having its "Symphony Under the Stars" sponsored by Swire. It used to be an annual event until 2018 because of the protests and Covid-19 and now it's back.

A few weeks ago we all had to go online to get the free tickets... as soon as 10am hit, I had over 1,500 people in front of me... by the time I got the tickets, they were near the back. No matter -- I have tickets! Each person was allowed to get a maximum of four tickets so I asked a friend to bring her husband and daughter along. 

Registration was tedious, including each person's email and mobile number and we had to use the Leave Home Safe app. And... no eating or drinking!

Thank goodness for big screens!

Previous outdoor concerts were a picnic affair, where groups would stake out their territory early with picnic blankets, bring food and drinks while enjoying the concert.

But alas we were told not to bring food or drinks into the venue. 

It was held at the Central Harbourfront Events Space, and instead there was seating, each marked with a seat number.

At the entrance, staff made sure we had our tickets, then we proceeded to security where they made sure we had scanned the Leave Home Safe app, then had a quick check of what was in our bags before allowing us in. 

I walked further and further away from the main stage... to section J. And each grouping of seats was in fours. There were several rows behind us, but we were pretty much at the back! The musicians on stage were practically dots. My friend's husband did bring binoculars, but really it was about listening to the music.

The concert was hosted by Harry Gor Gor or Harry Wong the musician and former radio host. He was lots of fun for the kids in the audience, especially when he got out his instrument that he played with his nose... even playing Brahms' Hungarian Dance with it!

When Wong tried to joke with some of the musicians, they came off sounding very serious... Except for a trio of trumpeters dressed in relaxing holiday gear. They told Wong they had just had a staycation in Yuen Long and handed him a wife cake!

People waving their phones to Blue Danube

The program's theme was dance music, so all the pieces were very familiar and easy to listen to, like Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, Saint-Saens' Danse macabre, Johan Strauss II's Blue Danube Waltz, and Anderson's Bugler's Holiday.

Wong kept teasing the audience about the fireworks, that it would happen... two pieces later. During the Blue Danube he encouraged people to turn on their phone lights as the drone above us swooped past. One of the composer's name is Khachaturian, and Wong joked if you said it in Chinese it sounded like gaat-jat choong leung, as in cockroach having a bath... 

After the two-hour mark, the concert was over, but not before the orchestra performed Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture Finale with fireworks! Amazing sight after having not seen any fireworks for over two years because of the anti-government protests and then the pandemic.

In front of us was a family with two young boys and they obviously loved the music. One kept swaying his arms like a conductor, the parents patient with them, not telling them to sit still, except for a security guard telling the younger one not to play with the chain bordering our section. But otherwise towards the end they were dancing and so excited to be there.

An exciting finish to the concert! 

Concerts like these help foster children's love of music and that's so important.

What's also interesting is that while Wong thanked Swire and people clapped, no one did when he also thanked the Hong Kong government for sponsoring the event as well... or at least I couldn't hear any applause...

Watch the concert here. Wong's nose instrument playing is at 1:48:07

Wong has a fun skeleton dance at 48:19

Missing the Music

Yo-Yo Ma performing one of his #songsofcomfort

I can't remember the last time I attended a live classical music concert -- sometime last year, but who the artist was and when it is all a distant memory.

But good news -- from October 1, people can attend live performances, though at half capacity, and a maximum of two seats together, and probably everyone wearing masks.

Back in March, YTSL and I were going to attend a series of concerts during the Hong Kong Arts Festival, but the entire event had to be scrapped at the last minute. And now over six months later we can finally get a dose of culture in our lives.

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Ironically in times like these music is a very good way to comfort others, but with this pandemic we cannot gather.

While musicians like Yo-Yo Ma played pieces of music with the hashtag #songsofcomfort, tried to give some levity to people on social media, German pianist Igor Levit began streaming his performances every night from his home to fans around the world, and violinist Itzak Perlman, who tells a terrible joke and then about a minute of music. Wonder if this is going to be his new act?

Violinist Itzak Perlman tells some corny jokes

In any event, one musician who has flown to Hong Kong and is now counting down the days in hotel quarantine is the young German pianist Alexander Krichel. He is here to perform with the

 

 

Hong Kong Sinfonietta on September 26 -- but there won't be anyone in the audience, though the concert will be recorded.

While stuck in his hotel room, Krichel has been admiring the city from his window in Wan Chai, and reports playing a lot of piano; he brought several books (The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, and A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking), but he hasn't touched them at all.

"I don't have to go anywhere or attend appointments. It's my best excuse ever to be with my piano for two weeks. It's amazing," said the 31-year-old, who has recorded a quarantine video diary on Facebook.

"By the third day, I wasn't jet lagged anymore and once I even practiced till 4.30 in the morning. With this

view of Hong Kong, it's very intimate, romantic moment with the piano. It's only us and it's so beautiful."

He added the experience in quarantine has reaffirmed his love for music and his profession.

Alexander Krichel in his hotel room in Hong Kong

Krichel has come up with creative ways to still draw audiences during the pandemic. In May he staged a drive-in piano recital in Iserlohn, Germany, playing to about 200 people in 90 cars. 

As of yesterday Krichel completed his quarantine and celebrated with a visit to the Peak! Too bad we won't get to watch him live after the two weeks of hotel prison he has gone through. 

But hopefully we can catch a concert of two, before the fourth wave hits...

Singing Can Get You into Trouble

Students form a human chain to protest a teacher's sacking

These days singing a song can you get you into trouble with the authorities.

Students at Heung To Middle School in Kowloon Tong formed a human chain outside their school in protest of a music teacher who was fired for letting some students sing Glory to Hong Kong before an exam.

The students also chanted slogans and criticized the school authorities for not renewing the teacher's contract, accusing them of spreading "white terror".

Students said the teacher was politically neutral

A large group of police officers showed up an hour after the protest started, around 1.30pm and warned the students of not obeying social-distancing rules. The protest, which was also supported by some alumni, broke up soon after.

One of the students said the popular teacher had taught at the school for 12 years and did not demonstrate any particular political leaning.

The teacher wrote an email to students and teachers saying her contract would not be renewed, and did not give a reason why.  

Meanwhile the school sent out an email to parents, saying it was a "patriotic school by tradition", which guides the students to "love the country and identify themselves as Chinese".

One of the students who sang at the exam said the teacher didn't stop them from choosing the song, but to choose it carefully, and if any students felt uncomfortable about the song could leave the room.

Yeung warns of "political propaganda" in schools

This is the first school to face the pressure of having to deal with the situation should students participate in "political propaganda".

Yesterday Education Secretary Kevin Yeung Yun-hung said students should not sing songs on campus that are "political propaganda", and that it would be left to schools to decide what should and shouldn't be allowed.

He had earlier sent a letter to schools,

saying students should not boycott classes, shout slogans in schools, form human chains, put up posters, or sing songs with political messages.

The school could have punished the students, but instead chose to fire the teacher; either way it sends chills to students and staff that the school means business.

And then this evening hundreds of protesters gathered across the city ignoring social distancing regulations to also sing Glory to Hong Kong, and shout slogans, only to have police aggressively pounce on them. Police say 35 people were arrested, and one pro-Beijing man attacked protesters with a knife and was subdued.

Protesters out in force in Causeway Bay tonight

These people are being repressed from exercising their freedoms enshrined in the Basic Law -- freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

Pretty soon Hong Kong will become a silent city, where no one dares to speak out. How can anyone have confidence in a society like that?

Munich's New Town Hall

The gorgeous neo-gothic facade of the New Town Hall

We hired a car to take us from Frankfurt to Munich today, about 400km which took five hours with a lunch break in between. It was a pretty smooth ride overall. Yesterday we learned from our driver how every driver in Germany is well trained -- they all must enroll in professional driving schools for three months and the tests are pretty extensive.

Looking at the tower from inside the town hall complex

Once someone gets their license they have to drive carefully for the first two years -- if they get a speeding ticket, their license is revoked and they won't be able to drive for two years. Apparently the practical driving test is also difficult as the examiner will sometimes ask the driver trick questions to throw them off.

Our hotel is walking distance to Marienplatz, or Mary's Square, and we wandered there after an early dinner.

There's a lot of free entertainment, lots of musicians performing for any spare change you may have. One really good performer was a soprano accompanied by a guitarist.

The square has been around since 1158 with farmers selling their produce and merchants hawking their wares, but these days the area filled with international shopping brands like H&M, Vodafone, SportCheck, United Colours of Benetton, and discount clothing store TK Maxx. There are also mobile fruit stands that are also selling white asparagus which is in season.

The highlight of Marienplatz is the New City Hall or Neues Rathaus that is a stunning neo-gothic building made of brick and limestone that was built between 1867 and 1874.

The tower features a glockenspiel

Meanwhile the facade of the building features a glockenspiel in the tower balcony and everyday at 11am, 12pm and 5pm, mechanically powered figurines represent stories from Munich's history, along with the city's coat of arms, and then angel of peace.

We didn't get a chance to see the show, but maybe we can check it out in the next day or so, as well as take the lift up the 85-metre tall tower to see the views of Munich from above.

Two Sessions in Gobbledygook

The Two Sessions, the annual political meeting is on now in Beijing

China's big political event, 两会 or "the Two Sessions" annual meeting is on, and I can't keep track of all the new legislation that's coming down, but a relative told me on a recent trip to Guangzhou that online monitoring was so tight that the couldn't even use WeChat to communicate with their relatives to arrange when to meet up.

They had to resort to either calling their phone number, or SMS... Seems like an aim to inconvenience over a billion people for a few days...

But perhaps the biggest irony is a propaganda rap song about the Two Sessions released by Xinhua news agency. The song that runs 4:48 was composed by rapper Su Han who became famous from being on the reality show Sing! China.



His song, called "Two Sessions", is a total cringe fest because the lyrics are utterly grammatically incorrect and Su seems to have looked up a lot of words in the thesaurus and tried to use bigger words to sound more sophisticated. However it has the opposite effect in showing he does not know exactly what the word means.

For example one line says: "Eject all the rapaciousness like shaking of nephrolithiasis".

Rapper Su Han singing his heart out in unintelligible English

What?

The chorus is also mind-boggling: "We've got two sessions, we've got two sessions/ For the fragrance we're blessing, to the world we show our affection."

Yeah, OK...

Or how about: "See the Larch rolling miles upon miles/ when we meet satisfied Popeye".

What does Popeye have to do with China?

And the song keeps going for over four minutes without making any kind of sense.

Who put Su up to this? And what was his time line? Did they ask him to write it in a day?

Perhaps the most ironic thing is that the Chinese government is wary of hip hop, and while there is no full ban in place, since last year it has been considered not to be politically correct to be associated with that genre of music.

How does this hip hop song make China cool?

Why then, has the government released this atrocious song in the style of hip hop?

It probably thought co-opting hip hop it would make the authorities sound cool to the younger generation, but it's kind of like once your parents like what you like, you move onto something else...

Please Turn Off Your Phone

After four years, Raphael Severe returns to Hong Kong

Tonight's concert was supposed to be a good one at the City Hall Concert Hall.

The Hong Kong Sinfonietta led by Yip Wing-sie hosted 24-year-old Raphael Severe in a performance of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A, K622. The Frenchman can play a wide range of sounds on his instrument, earthy warbling ones to delicate soft notes. The first two movements were going well until about half way through the third movement --

Rrrrriiiiiiiing!

The orchestra and Severe continued, but

Rrrrrriiiiiing!

The Hong Kong Sinfonietta at City Hall Concert Hall

It was the elderly gentleman right behind me whose phone was not only annoying us nearby, but also the soloist, as we were only sitting a few rows from the stage.

One would expect the audience member with the offending smartphone to immediately try to silence the damned phone but he was completely oblivious to it...

Rrrriiiiing!

It rang several times and then finally stopped.

By this point Severe seemed to have been distracted by the phone and was just trying to focus enough to finish the concerto.

I lost my focus on the music too and it was annoying to say the least!

Nevertheless Severe is quite the prodigy, learning piano, violin and cello before focusing on the piano and clarinet at the age of eight.

He was admitted to the top clarinet class, having skipped eight classes... by 12 he won prizes in five international competitions, including First Prize and Jury's Special Prize at the Tokyo International Competition.

Two years later he was admitted to the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris, where he got his bachelor's degree at 16, and masters degree a year later, both with high honours.

No doubt the kid is talented.

Too bad about the phone...

 

David Byrne in Hong Kong!

David Byrne opens the show with a brain...

We interrupt our report on Rome and Spain with a report from the second day of Clockenflap, a three-day music and arts festival in Hong Kong.

I was very keen to see Renaissance man David Byrne perform tonight and I was not disappointed!

His entire band is mobile on stage so they can walk around

While I don't know all his songs, I was very impressed by his show -- it was all well thought out, choreographed and sounded amazing.

The stage was completely bare -- and he and almost all of his musicians and back-up singers were in bare feet. They also all wore the same shirt and gray suit, complete with vents and pleats behind each shoulder to allow more movement.

With the bare stage lined with long strings of chain as "curtains", it seemed like Byrne wanted to show that he had nothing to hide -- this is me -- and there are no special effects behind the scenes. And he did point out there were no amplifiers, that it was the musicians themselves who were playing the music.

He and his performers are barefoot on stage

Everyone from the guitarist to the drummers and keyboardist were mobile -- they wore contraptions on their shoulders to carry the instruments around and be able to walk around the stage and even dance.

Meanwhile Byrne himself was completely natural on stage, completely unfazed by what was going on and did his thing. He was non-stop for an hour and a half, singing, playing the guitar, dancing, marching around on stage. At one point he was lying on his side on a chair for a few minutes. Now that's core! And he's 66 years old!

At times he asked in Cantonese, "Ho teng ma?" "How's the concert" or "How does it sound?" We roared in approval.

Midway through he finally performed a Talking Heads song -- Once in a Lifetime -- and then eventually Burning Down the House where the crowd got really excited.



For his last song, Byrne struck a serious social and political note. He sang Janelle Monae's song, Hell You Talmbout, which calls everyone to say people's names. Whose names? Victims of police violence.

There are names like Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown and Sharonda Singleton.

In a recent interview Byrne explains why he wants to perform it:

"Here was a protest song that doesn't hector or preach at us," he said. "It simply asks us to remember and acknowledge these lives that have been lost, lives that were taken from us through injustice, though the song leaves that for the listener to put together. I love a drum line, so that aspect of the song sucked me in immediately as well. The song musically is a celebration and lyrically a eulogy. Beautiful."



It's an energetic song, but also a sombre reminder of the times we live in.

David Byrne, thank you for an amazing concert! We hope you had as much fun performing for us in Hong Kong as we enjoyed every moment with you.

Movie Music!

The Hong Kong Sinfonietta performed in the HK City Hall Concert Hall

 Tonight YTSL and I attended a really good concert put on by the Hong Kong Sinfonietta called "Sounds Great! Classical Music in Movies", held at Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall.

Originally a guest conductor called Jason Lai, a British-born Chinese was supposed to lead the orchestra, but a few weeks ago YTSL received an email saying resident conductor Yip Wing-sie would be heading the program.

Never mind -- we were keen on the music and enjoyed it very much.

The orchestra looked packed on the stage, squishing everyone and all the instruments in, as there were many percussion instruments and several keyboards including a grand piano!

The concert started with the tingling Also Sprach Zarathustra: Introduction by Richard Strauss, which film goers will recognize as the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey.



This was followed by Wagner's Die Walkure: Ride of the Valkyries that was used in a scene in Apocalypse Now where the helicopters fly low and start shooting at the Vietnamese below in a village by the water. Yip says this piece of music was perfect for this scene, making it indelible in her mind.



Next on the program was Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A, K622 (second movement), which was used in the film Out of Africa, a very romantic movie.



Tchaikovsky was next with two pieces, one was The Swan Lake, which Yip explained is always used in movies with ballets in them, followed by Romeo & Juliet Fantasy Overture, that has been used in soundtracks from Scrubs to South Park, Spongebob Square Pants and Looney Tunes cartoons.



After the intermission, we reassembled back into the concert hall to hear a rousing rendition of Mozart's Symphony No 25 in G minor, K183 (first movement). When I hear this piece I immediately think of the opening scene in Amadeus, where composer Antonio Salieri is found to have slit his throat. Yip says Mozart is the best composer in the world, which makes the film such a good one because it features his music in there.



Yip then talked about American composer Barber's Adagio for Strings. Originally it was supposed to be for a string quartet, but when it was used in the film Platoon, he adapted it for a string orchestra. Another haunting piece of music for Yip while watching the movie, but she said for those who hadn't, it was romantic piece.

It made me realize that as a conductor, she must listen to the music used in movies much more acutely than the rest of us! And how do composers feel about their music being used in films?



Then who can resist throwing in Johann Strauss Jr's On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Op. 314, the music most synonymous with the waltz. The last piece of music was from John Williams, of course Star Wars. Yip explained the orchestra likes playing his works because he composes for all the members to play, in particular percussion, along with harp and piano. So it's not just the audience that likes his music!



Yip encouraged the audience to come back again -- they are performing the same program tomorrow and Sunday!

Good Sax!

Paris-based Habanera Saxophone Quartet has been around since 1993

YTSL suggested we get tickets for a concert we saw tonight, featuring the Habanera Saxophone Quartet from Paris. They along with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong performed at City Hall Concert Hall and it was packed with audience members ranging from children to seniors.

City Chamber Orchestra finished its season tonight

The concert was part of Le French May, originally a month to celebrate the culture of France for a month, but it has since stretched to two. This was the last event for Le French May, and the last concert of the season for the local orchestra.

To warm up the audience, the chamber orchestra led by guest conductor Vahan Mardirossian, performed Three Pieces for Chamber Orchestra by Astor Piazzolla. The orchestra was accompanied by pianist Julie Kuok, whose instrument was placed behind the players instead of in front.

We found the first movement slow, but things jazzed up with the second and third movements.

Next came Habanera, and together with the orchestra they performed Ferrer Ferran's Saxiland for Saxophone Quartet and Strings. It's not often you see four saxophonists playing together and with such a range, from soprano to tenor, alto and baritone saxophones!

The musicians were led by Armenian Vahan Mardirossian

During the intermission we bumped into YTSL's friend who once studied music composition and remarked the piece was either meant to punish the saxophone players or they were demanding something more difficult. Either way it was impressive.

After the 15-minute break we reconvened to hear Four Preludes for Saxophone Quartet, Strings and Percussion by Fazil Say. It was quite an abstract piece for the most part, with lots of drumming, even the bongos! But at times the saxophones made interesting sounds that were as if they were plucked like a string instrument. How did they do that?

The audience was thrilled by their performance, and they performed three encores. This is our favourite one -- Tango Virtuoso.

Have you ever seen a quartet of saxophones not only play well together but have a choreographed act too?!

Saxiland

Featuring Habanera Saxophone Quartet

With the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong

Guest conductor Vahan Mardirsossian

Pianist Julie Kuok

City Hall Concert Hall

Polish Jazz in Hong Kong

Maciej Fortuna is a trumpeter, composer, music producer with an MA in Law!

The 46th HK Arts Festival is on and I've only got tickets to two shows! My friend YTSL has to remind me to look through the catalogue and then it's overwhelming...

One of the shows I picked on a whim was the theme of nouveau jazz and I'm glad I did.

What is it about the Polish and jazz? When I was in Beijing I heard Andrzej Jagodzinski and his group do jazzy riffs off of Chopin that was so cool and now this group, Maciej Fortuna Special Quartet in Hong Kong and they were fantastic.


Maciej Fortuna Special Quartet from Fortuna Music on Vimeo.

Held at Shouson Theatre in the Hong Kong Arts Centre, it was a nice intimate space for this kind of performance. There was free seating so I tried to arrive a bit earlier, but there was no problem getting a decent seat -- they were all good.

It turns out the group plays electronica jazz, something I haven't heard before and the sounds were pretty neat. There was a pianist (Andrzej Konieczny), a bassist (Roman Chraniuk), a drummer (Jakub Miarcznski) and the leader, Maciej Fortuna on trumpet.

The Maciej Fortuna Special Quartet

For example the trumpet was attached to a wire that was linked to some switchboard that Fortuna used to create new sounds coming from his instrument that didn't sound much like a trumpet but like an electric guitar.

When the bass was attached to an amp, it also made groovy sounds like a fuzzy plucked electric guitar. And then at times the pianist would go behind the piano and start playing on the second set of drums. One would think it would be too much, but they created so much energy, feeding off each other like a drum duel.

The dynamics between the members was great -- they riffed off of each other, kept the beat going and most importantly enjoyed themselves on stage. The freedom they have to express themselves is what makes jazz so interesting to watch and listen.

Andrzej Jagodzinski Trio plays Chopin with a jazz twist

Towards the end of the 90-minute show, Fortuna explained he had played here before, though some of his band members hadn't, and they enjoyed performing here immensely. He mistakenly said "Here in China" and then said, "I mean Hong Kong". He said the slight was similar to him performing in Iceland and then saying to the audience "In continental Europe..."

We forgave him and clapped loudly enough for them to do an encore. What a blast.

Maciej Fortuna Special Quartet

March 4, 2018

Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre

Big Band Night Out

The Stray Katz have played once a month at Grappa's for over 15 years

The other day my inbox had an email about a local big band called The Stray Katz who would be disbanding after 27 years and this Saturday night would be their second last performance -- the last one is April 7.

I told my colleague about it and he brought his girlfriend along and we had dinner and a show at Grappa's Cellar in the basement of Jardine House in Central.

I don't usually go out Saturday nights -- usually having dinner with my relatives, but it's good to know Grappa's Cellar has some fun events from bands to solo artists to comedians who come through.

The Stray Katz is a rag-tag group, most averaging mid to late 50s, some Caucasian, some Filipino, some Chinese, playing trumpet, trombone, saxophone, drums, electric guitar and keyboard.

On the whole they were pretty good, playing everything from Dixieland to Frank Sinatra to Stevie Wonder to even their rendition of Spiderman. One singer sounded very much like Frank with the same phrasing, though on one song he lost track of the words and apologized! No need, he had a suave voice singing Fly Me to the Moon and Under My Skin, unlike another guy who didn't have the smooth touch so it sounded more like bad karaoke.

During a break I saw JR Robertson, the owner of Grappa's and he said the band leader of The Stray Katz wasn't there tonight because he arrived so drunk that they had to send him back home to Lantau in a taxi. Does this happen on a regular basis?

Robertson is disappointed The Stray Katz is disbanding because the band leader doesn't want to do it anymore, but Robertson has already talked to some of the band members about possibly continuing again. He explained the group meets up every week to practice, and some have day jobs.

It was a good night out, though the food was hit and miss. The bruschetta was OK, the deep-fried green olives were massive and filled with chopped pork inside, while the calamari was disappointing, flat in flavour.

The margherita pizza was massive -- a long rectangular pizza with around a dozen pieces on it, the taste improved with a tiny sprinkling of chili flakes.

Good thing we didn't order mains -- I would have been too full.

It was a fun evening bopping to the music, watching swing dancers on the floor -- including a guy in a turban dancing with a Chinese guy -- and having hilarious conversation threaded throughout.

Grappa's Cellar

Basement, Jardine House

1 Connaught Place

Central

2521 2322

Clockenflap 2017: Day One

The 10th edition of Clockenflap kicked off this evening in Central

It's that time again -- Clockenflap, a three-day music festival that kicked off tonight at Central Harbourfront for the second year.

The chilled out DJ Kulu

It was unusually hot today -- 27 degrees and temperatures are expected to plunge to 19 tomorrow and Sunday with some rain patches.

We got to meet a gentle soul this afternoon -- the legendary DJ Kulu -- yep that's his name.

He's from Hong Kong and went to the UK in the 1960s to learn graphic design but ended up in fashion photography instead. He did quite well for himself and grew to have a passion for jazz.

In the 1970s he started DJ-ing. He regularly held parties once a month in his photographic studio and said one time his partner went to India and didn't come back -- so Kulu just started spinning the discs.

He came back to Hong Kong in 1999 and has been seen around town with his trademark looks Chinese robes, straw fedora and Chinese goatee playing at various gigs. He's such a gentleman too, so polite and chilled.

Higher Brothers rapping under the PLA gaze...!

In contrast, Higher Brothers, a hip hop group from Chengdu, Sichuan province was getting the crowd excited as they rapped in Mandarin and a few words in English.

The most ironic thing was them rapping provocative lyrics with the PLA or People's Liberation Army building behind them. I wondered if they could hear what they were rapping...

Silk Road: Uyghur Culture

Two musicians playing amazing instruments, a woman on tambourine

After we arrived in Kashgar, we quickly noticed things were much different here in the westernmost city in China and Xinjiang that borders Kazakhstan. All the Uyghurs look very different, some fair skinned, almost European, and others very dark and could be mistaken for being Mexican, much like how the Spanish can have various shades of skin colour.

Our first meal was at a Uyghur restaurant that looked traditional and probably for the benefit of tourists. In the middle was a bar (with no alcohol) and a dancing floor with a platform where three musicians sat playing instruments. Two dancers, a man and a woman performed folk dances for guests.

The woman would also dance with her partner for diners

It seemed like the Han Chinese sat on one side of the room, while the other featured Hui ethnic minority people, who are also Muslim, the women wearing simple headdresses and clapping along with the music.

We were given an array of dishes to eat, like a ratatouille with noodles, a large dumpling filled with lamb, and sweet rice seasoned with spices, and of course lamb kebabs. We were also presented with baked buns with minced meat inside.

The music was fantastic, mesmerizing to listen to -- a pity we were not given an introduction to the instruments! And it was interesting to watch how the dancers interpreted the music through their dance steps.

A bowl of noodles with a kind of ratatouille

After dinner, I wanted to share some moon cakes from Hong Kong with the rest of the tour members -- 30-year-old mandarin peels with red bean paste -- but I needed a knife to cut them.

We asked one of the waitresses in Mandarin and she violently shook her head and waved her hand. Then we thought she didn't understand Mandarin and drew a picture... not the best drawing, but when we showed it to her she again shook her head.

Finally we managed to flag down our Uyghur tour guide to ask for a knife and he said we were not allowed to have one in the restaurant. In the end we had to settle for a spoon which I used to cut the moon cakes into quarters. It wasn't the best solution, but it was the only one.

Sweetened and spiced rice with lamb kebabs and a dumpling

We later found out that Uyghurs are not allowed to carry knives anywhere and they are only allowed in the kitchen, not for guests to use. It's just another of the Chinese government's strict measures to try to control this "restive region" following some attacks in the last eight to nine years, some of which involved knives.

The longer we stayed here, the more we realized how oppressive life was like for Uyghurs -- on a daily basis.

Silk Road: Mogao Grottoes

The Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, Gansu province

About 10 years ago when I was in Beijing, I checked out an exhibition that was a replica of the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang.

There are over 400 caves, but only a handful shown publicly

I didn't know anything about them but it sounded fascinating and was so glad I went. Afterwards I was thinking, I have to see the real thing... wherever Dunhuang is!

It took me a decade to finally go see the place in person and it has to be appreciated on so many levels in terms of art, history, and society. It all started in 366AD, when a Buddhist monk named Le Zun was traveling in the area and had a vision of a thousand Buddhas. He built a cave here in hopes of reaching nirvana.

Others soon followed, digging out their own caves and began decorating them with paintings. It's here in these caves or grottoes that one can see not only the artistic skill that spans over 1,000 years, making it a kind of library of art history of that time, but also how Buddhism was depicted and studied.

Some caves reveal intricate artistic detail and vivid colours

Some pilgrims paid artisans to decorate caves for them, and so it must have become a mini industry in the middle of the desert to demonstrate their devotion to Buddha. Apparently there were some 1,000 caves, but when they were abandoned, the desert sands took over them; there are 735 left, of which almost 500 are decorated.

While most of the caves feature three Buddhas -- the present, past and future, along with musicians and dancers that seem weightless in the sky, there were also more down-to-earth portraits of wealthy patrons, such as the Cao family, featuring women in long robes and make-up. Others captured daily life, such as farming and the foods they ate.

Musicians in flowing robes performing for Buddha

We only saw about seven caves and the ones we saw were not all in good condition. Some figures had black faces, but that's because the pink colour had oxidized over the decades and centuries. Some caves had glaringly empty spots where sculptures used to be and had been stolen, or the "eyes" of Buddhist disciples scratched out because they used to have gold on them.

One cave had a giant Buddha lying on his side after death, his disciples mourning in grief, while another had Buddha standing up 75 feet tall.

Black faces are from oxidation of the paint on the walls

A reminder of foreign theft was shown in one cave that had stored 7,000 manuscripts including the Diamond Sutra that was published in 868AD and were gone, now in the British Library. The caves are individually locked with padlocks which our guide has to use a key to open each one and lock afterwards.

We were lucky to come here just before the Golden Week rush, so there wasn't a massive crowd of people, and we came early in the morning too. We wished we could see more, and the prime examples of caves, but alas, our guanxi wasn't good enough.

But just to have the experience of being in these caves and seeing the majesty of the art work was enough to satisfy our curiosity. Will we come back? Not sure, but at least we saw a slice of it.

Some have large statues housed in them with disciples

No wonder artists like Zhang Daqian came here to copy many of the murals, staying here for months at a time. I managed to see some of his works from his time there in August when there was an exhibition in Macau.

Book of Mormon

Mormon Elder Cunningham tries to convert Ugandans to Jesus Christ

We saw another show that I have been wanting to see for several years -- Book of Mormon.

Again it was a packed show at the Eugene O'Neill Theater, but we didn't have to line up around the block just to get in.

The premise of the story is funny -- a do-gooder Mormon missionary called Elder Kevin Price is considered the most qualified to go on his mission and hopes he'll be posted to Orlando, but he is sent to of all places -- Uganda -- with Elder Arnold Cunningham -- who likes to embellish things... a lot.

Everyone looks up to Elder Price as the model Mormon

It starts off hilarious, with side jokes here and there, but then things start getting really crass -- lots of f-words and outrageous lines that are definitely sung and spoken to get attention and cheap laughs.

But after a while when you swear too many times, the audience gets numbed by it and loses its effectiveness, let alone shock value.

We still enjoyed the storyline, but was the excessive amount of profanities that necessary? We were pretty much cringing towards the end and wondered how it would all end...

Both the leads were fantastic strong singers and the leader of the Mormon group in Uganda was really funny as he had gay tendancies he tried to hide. The most hilarious song had to be Turn It Off, when Elder Price is told to "turn off" his concerns about confronting a Ugandan warlord, much like the Mormon leader being attracted to men.

The lyrics are written by Robert Lopez, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the latter two famous for South Park, and so you know you're probably in for some crass humour, and took seven years to finally get performed on stage.

Funny satire on Mormons but a lot of swearing in it!

Stone and Parker grew up in Colorado and so they were very familiar with the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints. When they were researching for the musical they went to Salt Lake City and interviewed missionaries and former ones, so in a way the audience can tell the musical may poke fun at Mormons, it doesn't slam them completely, that faith, hope and optimism are really important to everyone.

When the musical came out in 2011, the church issued a "measured", saying: "The production may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening, but the Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture will change people's lives forever by bringing them closer to Christ".

There isn't much the church can do since it was a Tony-award winning show and has traveled around to several countries. Doubt it would make it to Hong Kong though!

Book of Mormon

Eugene O'Neill Theatre

230 West 49th Street

New York

Musical Ping Pong

Whoa what a finale! Incorporating table tennis with music. How novel!

This evening YTSL and I had tickets to watch a concert by the Hong Kong Philharmonic called "Ping Pong Diplomacy", harking back to over 45 years ago when the table tennis team from the United States visited China.

It was considered a world-changing event in Sino-US relations, breaking the ice and paving the way for then US President Richard Nixon to come to China and meet with Mao Zedong.

Conductor Yu Long commissioned a piece -- featuring table tennis in the music! -- by Andy Akiho and it was performed for the first time two years ago by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.

Were the table tennis players going to use up all those balls?

But before that music. Yu led the orchestra in a rousing Tchaikovsky piece called Serenade for Strings, op. 48. I had forgotten Yu likes a fast tempo but was soon quickly reminded when the opening, which is supposed to be like a sonatina, seemed very rushed.

He tried to make the second movement, a waltz, markedly slower, but it too speeded up towards the end, as well as the finale.

I forgot to add that the musicians weren't dressed in formal wear, but black T-shirts and jeans instead which was a weird look, perhaps to make the audience not feel so bad to be casual either.

There was no intermission, and the stage was set for Akiho's Ricochet: Triple Concerto for Ping Pong, Percussion, Violin & Orchestra with three movements.

We the audience were forewarned that ping pong balls could fly into the crowd. This we had to watch.

The piece starts with a violinist making eerie sounds on her instrument, and then a percussionist stands by the ping pong table and starts playing on drums with it. Two actual ping pong players, both American, but one Caucasian male in a shirt and red bow tie, the other a Chinese woman, in a red sleeveless cocktail dress and black heels approach the table and actually start playing table tennis.

At times they rally, and then they start hitting balls towards the audience. They use tambourines to hit the ball so that they too make music, and she hits the drum on the ping pong table hard as a solo passage.

Imagine writing the music for this piece? Ping pong player hits drum; ping pong player uses tambourine to hit balls five times...

It was unpredictable when they were going to hit balls into the audience. In the end the violinist and percussionist each grab box of balls and dump them onto the table to end the piece. So crazy yet so fun!

Kids scrambled towards the stage to grab whatever orange balls they could.

It was just so interesting to see how table tennis could be incorporated into music and it works. The two ping pong players knew exactly when to hit and when to stop, catching the ball. They had several balls in hand just in case shots didn't work out to keep the momentum of hitting the ball going.

It was fun, lively and unpredictable!

Ping Pong Diplomacy

Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall

Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings, op. 48

Andy Akiho Ricochet: Triple Concerto for Ping Pong, Percussion, Violin & Orchestra

Gabriela Montero Living with Music

Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero is a whiz at the ivories

Today I had the opportunity to interview an amazing pianist who is classically trained, but can also improvise, much like a jazz musician -- on the spot.

Gabriela Montero is a Venezuelan pianist who will be performing tomorrow night at City Hall Concert Hall, playing Schubert and Schumann in the first half, and then after the intermission, she will take suggestions from the audience of what to play -- as long as they hum it to her.

She explained that improvisation was something classical musicians did in the 16th and 17th centuries, when composers would write "cadenza", and expect the musician to add their own flourish.

But later on, musicians didn't know what to play, and eventually it was written out, which is why people like me have always thought that classical music was about playing the piece exactly as the composer had intended, down to every last note.

Here she is riffing off of Bach's Goldberg Variations:

As someone who learned classical music on the piano, I could never even dream of improvising -- I thought it was something only those who were well versed in music could do, but Montero is in an league of her own.

When she was a baby she was already playing a toy piano in her crib. By the age of five she gave her first public performance and at eight performed her first piano concerto.

She likes to connect with the audience with improvisation

I brought up the description of being a prodigy, but she doesn't like the word, saying it separates her from others. She also frankly admitted she quit piano twice, one time not touching the piano for two-and-a-half years because she didn't want music to dictate her life.

"Just because I'm good at it doesn't mean I like it," she said. It took her years to reconcile with her talent and also the fact that she was a single mother meant that she had to use her skills as a musician to support her family.

Now she seems very happy to be making music on her own terms, and using it has a platform to speak out about her home country that is falling apart due to the corrupt government, with people starving from not being able to get access to food.

In 2011 she wrote Ex Patria as an emotional musical picture of what is going on in Venezuela, and while she has performed it 10 times, including a recording, she hopes she doesn't have to play it again.

The following year Amnesty International made her an honorary consul, where she uses the position to talk about Venezuela, and she is now basically in self-imposed exile; if she were to return, she says she would be put in jail. She now lives in Barcelona with her husband and two daughters.

But back to the improvisation -- I hummed her Teresa Teng's famous song, The Moon Represents My Heart.

She played what I hummed perfectly on the piano, dabbled a bit with it and then began to play. And watching her riff off the phrase in various styles was amazing. We were just spellbound watching her play.

After she finished, she said that when she improvises, it has to be recorded because she cannot play it exactly the same again -- the music flows through her onto the keys and once it's over, that's it.

Montero seems at peace with her spellbinding talent, probably thanks to age and having tried to quit twice and then coming to terms with it, but also determined to use it the way she wants to.

She has a warm spirit and eager to share her music with everyone.