If you’re a regular viewer of the show you may remember that over the years, we’ve sometimes invited marimba and vibraphone players to introduce us to the repertoire of these percussive instruments. This week we’re featuring a marimba player who adds another dimension to the instrument, combining it with electronic music and visual art.
But before venturing into new music, a trip back in time and into painting. We’re taking a look at works from Britain’s National Gallery, on show at the Hong Kong Palace Museum.

Percussion instruments were among the very first to be created by humans. Banging things is easy. But that doesn’t mean all percussion instruments have that long a history. The modern marimba was developed in Mexico in the late 19th century. And there’s not a long history of works composed specifically for them. Paul Creston’s 1940 “Concertino for Marimba” is thought of as the first major orchestral piece to highlight the instrument. More recently still, composers have been combining the marimba with electronic music, and that’s where Ernestina Leung’s interest lies. She’s with us now.

"The Collectible Art Fair”, which ended on 16th November, took place for the first time at the Hong Kong Arts Centre. It was organised by the arts centre’s education division, the Hong Kong Art School, and its alumni network. The exhibition features more than 300 artworks from over 200 artists, but it is neither a traditional art fair, nor a gallery exhibition. It is a platform through which current students, graduates, and other artists connected with a single art school were able to come together to show their works.

German painter Neo Rauch's exhibition at David Zwirner gallery is called “Feldzeichen”, which translates as “field signs”. At a first glance the large paintings seem realistic, containing recognisable human figures and objects. Look at them longer and they become more dreamlike and symbolic. Characters and objects recur, like an iron sign that also turns up in both “Sonne”, which means “sun” and “Trift” or “drift”. Other symbolic elements include butterflies and moths. The repeated elements become part of a common repertoire in the artist’s work.

Hailing originally from Scotland, vocalist Yvonne Barrie has been singing and teaching music in Britain, Korea, and now Hong Kong, for many years. With her jazz quintet, she and her fellow musicians, including her saxophonist husband, Bruce Hunnisett, combine jazz with Scottish and English folk tunes to tell their stories. They’re here to talk to us about their musical journey.

In November 2019, shortly before the Hong Kong Museum of Art re-opened after its four-year renovation, it signed a memorandum with Italy’s Uffizi Gallery that under a five-year plan both establishments would co-operate on exhibitions and other cultural exchanges. The first selection of works from the Uffizi, focusing on Botticelli and the Renaissance in the 15th and 16th centuries, came to Hong Kong in 2020. A second exhibition of works from the gallery opened early this month. This time the subject is Titian and the Venetian Renaissance.

As soon as you walk into the exhibition here at The Sun Museum, the Chinese title 太平景象, the English title “Peaceful Colour”, and the paintings themselves, make it very clear this is an exhibition about Hong Kong. It focuses on daily Hong Kong life under the two mountains, Tai Ping Shan, otherwise known as The Peak, and the Lion Rock.
The exhibition features 140 paintings by 70 members of the Hong Kong Artists Society. In keeping with the Chinese literati tradition of giving small paintings as gifts, each artist created small 30 by 40 centimetre images, to depict Hong Kong subjects in a variety of materials and styles.

You won’t find saxophones in regular use in most orchestras, but as the four different types of saxophones in common use, and more than ten in the full saxophone family suggest, it is highly versatile. Chemie Ching, who you may have seen on The Works before, likes to play a wide repertoire of saxophone music in many genres, including jazz, pop, and classical. She’s here to tell us about her upcoming recital that highlights the diverse range of this instrument.

Extemporisation or improvisation has long been part of classical music. Composers such as Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt were all known for their improvisational skills. Apart from improvisation, many contemporary musicians also win praise for their ability to interpret well recognised pieces, playing them with a unique personality. For Korean violinist, Inmo Yang, exploring and interpreting the music of Sibelius and Paganini is a very personal journey.

Chinese calligraphic text, inscriptions and rubbings are the focus of the exhibition, “Kings’ Inscriptions · Contemporary Interpretations” at The University Museum and Art Gallery in The University of Hong Kong. The exhibition references not only the stone inscriptions once used to spread news of emperors but also modern works by self-proclaimed “kings”, like the King of Kowloon and Frog King, Kwok Mang-ho. It includes traditional and contemporary artworks by seven artists in a range of mediums that show Chinese characters and calligraphy being used to embody traditional values, cultural phenomena, and personal expression.

The “Carpio Brothers Quartet” was set up by Chris and Bernard Carpio with the aim of re-inventing the classic big-band sound for which their father Tony Carpio was known in Hong Kong since the early 1980s. In June, the brothers came to our studio to give us a preview of their new venture Soul Funk’d Ape, a modern jazz ensemble that plays in a range of genres, often creating original compositions. Then in July, guitarist Ron Ng was our studio guest. He also likes to move between genres, including jazz, blues, rock, funk, classical, and contemporary music. He came with his trio. Both groups gifted us with some extra pieces we’ve never shown you before. Today, we’re going to. First, Ron and his trio’s interpretation of Grant Green’s “Jean de fleur”. Then, Soul Funk’d Ape’s “Fly to Me”.

Living in a metropolis like Hong Kong we sometimes resent and sometimes enjoy the unrelenting pace and energy of people and events around us. The buzz, the noise, the speed, are integral parts of our daily lives. We tend to see stillness and intensity of life as opposites. But for artist and choreographer Maria Hassabi, the idea of the “paradox of stillness” is at the centre of her practice.

The group exhibition, “Human Silk” in Kwai Fung Salone features three artists from Italy: Paola Angelini, Thomas Braida and Nebojša Despotović. The exhibition title refers to Marco Polo’s voyage along the Silk Road and the long tradition of cultural exchange ever since. And Marco Polo isn’t the only connection with Venice. Not only did all three artists study there, it’s also the home base for the two guest curators Aurora Fonda and Sandro Pignotti.

For her concert later this month in Tai Kwun’s Prison Yard Festival, pianist Shelley Ng is splitting the programme into two parts. The first half takes its inspiration from November’s full moon, the last before the Winter Solstice. The second half is more related to earthly matters.
But what does that mean in terms of classical music?

On 8th October, Typhoon Koinu hit Hong Kong. The Observatory hoisted strong wind signal No. 3 on Friday, and by Sunday, signals number 8 and 9 had come into force.
Many music fans had planned to visit one or more outdoor concerts that weekend, as Friday was the start of the three-day Freespace Jazz Fest in West Kowloon. Many shows were cancelled, including one of the most anticipated: the closing gig by drummer Antonio Sánchez and his band, Bad Hombre.

Antonio Sánchez has been playing the drums since he was five. In his early teens, he was performing rock, jazz and Latin music professionally. Also trained in classical piano and jazz studies, he’s known for his long-time collaboration with guitarist and composer Pat Metheny. His score for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film, “Birdman”, which itself received four Oscars, earned him a Grammy award. Apart from that, he’s won four other Grammys, three Echo Awards, Golden Globe & BAFTA nominations, and has been named “Jazz Drummer of the Year” three times by Modern Drummer Magazine Although their concert was a no-go, Antonio Sánchez and vocalist Thana Alexa visited us in The Works studio a few hours before leaving Hong Kong.

As co-host Ben Pelletier is away this week on his travels, we will be welcoming a new member of the team, Katy Chow. She’s going to be introducing ongoing art events in Hong Kong in our regular “What’s On” segment. And another exciting thing we have in store today is a chat with pianist and composer Hayato Sumino, who was here for his debut Hong Kong recital last week.

You may remember that a few years ago, “The Works” reported on the gentrification of Sham Shui Po. The relatively cheap rents there at the time attracted artists, gallerists, and even café owners to start creating a small but lively cultural community in the district. But in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, things have changed. And not necessarily for the better.

Pianist and composer Hayato Sumino is known nor only for his interpretations of Chopin’s music, but also for his own cross genre musical arrangements that he posts on his YouTube channel under the name of CATEEN. He’s already attracted more than one and a quarter million subscribers there.
On 13rd October, HKU Muse invited him for a recital. It is his debut concert in Hong Kong and we went to chat with him.

Taking its name from the words “magazine” and “fanzine”, the “zine” owes its origins to the fanzines put together in the 1930s by lovers of science fiction. The self-publishing nature of zine-making ,where one person or a small group of people produce a small magazine cheaply, means that it can offer endless possibilities for imagination.

Antiguan artist and writer Frank Walter was a quiet person, said to have “an intense need for privacy”. In fact, he became a recluse in later life. His natural environment and surroundings provided sanctuary and inspiration for his works, which deal with the land, race, colonialism and the struggle for identity. Walter died in 2009, leaving an oeuvre that includes 5,000 paintings, 1,000 drawings, 600 sculptures, 2,000 photographs, 468 hours of recordings and a 50,000-page archive. “Pastorale”, on show at the David Zwirner gallery, is the first exhibition of his works in Asia.

Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah” tells the story of the Prophet Elijah from the Bible’s Old Testament. Inspired by the oratorios of Bach and Handel, the work is in two parts and is composed for eight vocal soloists and a full symphony orchestra. On the 10th November, the Bel Canto Singers are staging a local production of the piece. The director and some members of the cast are with us now.

For Pang Jiun, art ran in the family. Both his parents were painters. His father Pang Xunqin had studied oil painting in France, while his mother Qiu Ti studied in Japan. Upon returning to China, in 1932, Pang’s father and his fellow artist Ni Yide formed the short-lived artists' collective, the “Storm Society” to promote modernism and innovation in the Chinese painting scene. Qiu Ti later became a member. Although he's now in his late 80s, Pang Jiun still reflects the “Storm Society spirit” of his parents' generation in his works.

The act and process of “looking at paintings” is the curatorial theme of “Solo. Exhibition. Twice II: Of Seeing” at the Blindspot Gallery. On show side by side are recent works by Yeung Tong-lung and works by Sze Yuen from the past decade. This is their second joint exhibition, and your opportunity to see Yeung’s large-scale and brightly coloured oil paintings of everyday Hong Kong lives alongside the more muted colours of Sze Yuen’s scroll-like charcoal works and oil paintings.

Composer Doming Lam has been described as “The Father of New Music in Hong Kong” for his contribution to modernising Chinese music.
Trained as a violinist, Lam was born in Macau in 1926 and moved to Hong Kong in 1947 where he helped found the Sino-British Orchestra. That was to become the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in 1957. Lam was also one of the founders of the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong (CASH), the Hong Kong Composers Guild and the Asian Composers League. On 11th January this year, Lam died at the age of 96. "Of Roots and Ways: A Tribute to Maestro Doming Lam”, presented by The University of Hong Kong’s MUSE on 20th of this month, is a concert that features five chamber works by the composer.

According to the United Nations, the fashion industry is responsible for eight to ten percent of global emissions, more than the international aviation and shipping industries combined. If current growth continues, fast fashion emissions alone will increase five times by 2030. For designer Toby Crispy, concerns about the environmental and human cost of fast fashion hit very close to home.

Since 2008, sculptor Sui Jianguo has been using 3D scanning to capture details such as the shape and the texture of his palms and incorporate them into his works. On show at Pace Gallery till 26th of this month is a new body of work that consists of eight sculptures and ten works on paper. The new series includes his exploration of the traditional material of marble and how technology can interact with it.

Now in its fifth year, the annual Freespace Jazz Fest starts this week in its largest edition to date. The seven-day festival showcases more than 500 musicians from 11 countries in over 100 performances. For this year's Jazzfest, local musician and composer Olivier Cong has joined forces with three Korean musicians in a concert that combines traditional instrumental sounds and electronic elements.