The Strad: Postcard from Hong Kong: Musicus Fest
Cross-cultural and intergenerational exchange is the engine that drives cellist Trey Lee’s Musicus Fest, as Thomas May discovered at its eleventh edition
Cloud-piercing skyscrapers nestled amid sea, mountains and lush green spaces: Hong Kong is a captivating marvel of stunning yet harmonious contrasts. This densely populated, cosmopolitan metropolis surrounded by the South China Sea is best known as a financial hub and magnet for shoppers and culinary adventurers.
It’s also an environment particularly well suited to Musicus Society’s mission of promoting cross-cultural collaboration. ‘“East meets West” might be a cliché elsewhere, but in Hong Kong, it is literally what happens,’ said cellist Trey Lee, artistic director of the Hong Kong society he co-founded with his sister Chui-Inn Lee in 2010. ‘This may even be the original East-meets-West centre of the world.’
The Strad
By Thomas May
Cross-cultural and intergenerational exchange is the engine that drives cellist Trey Lee’s Musicus Fest, as Thomas May discovered at its eleventh edition
Cloud-piercing skyscrapers nestled amid sea, mountains and lush green spaces: Hong Kong is a captivating marvel of stunning yet harmonious contrasts. This densely populated, cosmopolitan metropolis surrounded by the South China Sea is best known as a financial hub and magnet for shoppers and culinary adventurers.
It’s also an environment particularly well suited to Musicus Society’s mission of promoting cross-cultural collaboration. ‘“East meets West” might be a cliché elsewhere, but in Hong Kong, it is literally what happens,’ said cellist Trey Lee, artistic director of the Hong Kong society he co-founded with his sister Chui-Inn Lee in 2010. ‘This may even be the original East-meets-West centre of the world.’
Although he has long been based in Berlin, Lee is also a musical thought leader who maintains tight connections with his native Hong Kong. He resolved to establish Musicus Society as a result of his personal experience studying abroad (initially in the US, subsequently across Europe). ‘One thing that always struck me when I worked with other musicians or won competitions was that nobody was expecting to meet a cellist from Hong Kong,’ Lee explained during my visit. ‘Hong Kong has so many young people studying classical music; I think the world needs to know that the city is not just a business and finance capital.’
Read more here.
The Strad: Andy Akiho: Oculus
Strings and percussion unite in a striking tree-inspired project
Now based between Portland, Oregon, and New York, composer and percussionist Andy Akiho had an unusual first-study instrument at college: the steel pan. It shows: there’s a sense of rhythmic and melodic drive that gives his music an immediately identifiable character, assured and accessible, but uncompromisingly complex, too, certainly in its restless metric modulations, shifting emphases and almost cartoonish exuberance, like a mix of PhD-level maths and grinning frat-boy humour.
They’re all qualities deeply embedded in this inspiring and brilliantly entertaining new disc of Akiho’s music, with a theme of wood and natural growth running through it. His LigNEouS Suite gets its arboreal name from the material predominantly employed in its unusual instrumentation of marimba and string quartet, with Akiho expanding his rich sound palette even further with scratchy string tones, snap pizzicatos and clattering, headless marimba mallets. It’s a joyfully extrovert piece, full of pulsing rhythms and big build-ups, but also subtle and cannily judged in its organic development of ideas. Though Ian Rosenbaum’s marimba is quite forwardly placed, the Dover Quartet gives a blisteringly intense performance, so crisp and precise that it sounds almost machine-made, with wheezing, bandoneón-like chords in the slower second movement and gradually unfolding quasi-Expressionist melodies in the fourth. It’s a startlingly accomplished, fiercely committed account.
The Strad
By David Kettle
Strings and percussion unite in a striking tree-inspired project
Now based between Portland, Oregon, and New York, composer and percussionist Andy Akiho had an unusual first-study instrument at college: the steel pan. It shows: there’s a sense of rhythmic and melodic drive that gives his music an immediately identifiable character, assured and accessible, but uncompromisingly complex, too, certainly in its restless metric modulations, shifting emphases and almost cartoonish exuberance, like a mix of PhD-level maths and grinning frat-boy humour.
They’re all qualities deeply embedded in this inspiring and brilliantly entertaining new disc of Akiho’s music, with a theme of wood and natural growth running through it. His LigNEouS Suite gets its arboreal name from the material predominantly employed in its unusual instrumentation of marimba and string quartet, with Akiho expanding his rich sound palette even further with scratchy string tones, snap pizzicatos and clattering, headless marimba mallets. It’s a joyfully extrovert piece, full of pulsing rhythms and big build-ups, but also subtle and cannily judged in its organic development of ideas. Though Ian Rosenbaum’s marimba is quite forwardly placed, the Dover Quartet gives a blisteringly intense performance, so crisp and precise that it sounds almost machine-made, with wheezing, bandoneón-like chords in the slower second movement and gradually unfolding quasi-Expressionist melodies in the fourth. It’s a startlingly accomplished, fiercely committed account.
Read more here.
The Strad: ‘Art has the ability to make one look at the world from a different perspective’ - cellist Trey Lee
The cellist and artistic director of Musicus, a Hong-Kong based organisation which promotes cross-cultural collaboration through performances, speaks about musical outreach, exploring new repertoire, and overcoming the challenges of travelling with a cello.
Musicus Society was founded to connect musicians from around the world with young talents from Hong Kong. The city has always had a huge proportion of young people who played a musical instrument (easily more than 50%), but not many had the chance to perform or interact with the visiting artists whom they saw performing on stage; rather, many just practised to pass an exam - a process that anyone would find musically uninspiring. Therefore, Musicus Society created three main programmes to address this situation: Musicus Fest, an annual festival; Musicus Inspires, an educational programme; and Musicus Heritage, a concert series in historic sites.
The Strad
The cellist and artistic director of Musicus, a Hong-Kong based organisation which promotes cross-cultural collaboration through performances, speaks about musical outreach, exploring new repertoire, and overcoming the challenges of travelling with a cello
Musicus Society was founded to connect musicians from around the world with young talents from Hong Kong. The city has always had a huge proportion of young people who played a musical instrument (easily more than 50%), but not many had the chance to perform or interact with the visiting artists whom they saw performing on stage; rather, many just practised to pass an exam - a process that anyone would find musically uninspiring. Therefore, Musicus Society created three main programmes to address this situation: Musicus Fest, an annual festival; Musicus Inspires, an educational programme; and Musicus Heritage, a concert series in historic sites.
Being artistic director sometimes feels like being a CEO. We have a great team at Musicus, but alas, the buck still stops with me. For example, when I suggested holding concerts in historic sites in Hong Kong, it was just wishful thinking because performance spaces in the city are so scarce. When it actually happened, many things needed to be done, including programming, research into historic sites, artist selection, etc. But I must admit that it has been truly gratifying whenever a young Hong Kong musician tells me that their first ’professional’ experience was with Musicus Society.
Read more here.
The Strad: Andie, Andy and Andy present a work for violin, trumpet and steel pan
n an instrumentation not seen every day, violinist Andie Tanning, trumpeter Andy Kozar and percussionist Andy Akiho perform ‘the rAy’s end’.
Akiho composed the work in 2008 for the trio, dubbed ‘The Andes’ because of the first name shared by its members - indeed, the title of this work, ’the rAy’s end,’ can be rearranged to spell out ’three Andys’.
’Although we did not start playing music together until well after we met, we soon realised the potential for the unique combination of timbres between our instruments,’ said Akiho. ’It was an inspiring challenge to combine these sounds together, because all three instruments encompass a similar range of pitches.While each instrument is extremely unique as a solo sound, the combined timbres create an amazing homogenous texture.
The Strad
Members of the Andes Trio, who all share the same first name, perform Akiho’s work ’the rAy’s end’
In an instrumentation not seen every day, violinist Andie Tanning, trumpeter Andy Kozar and percussionist Andy Akiho perform ‘the rAy’s end’.
Akiho composed the work in 2008 for the trio, dubbed ‘The Andes’ because of the first name shared by its members - indeed, the title of this work, ’the rAy’s end,’ can be rearranged to spell out ’three Andys’.
’Although we did not start playing music together until well after we met, we soon realised the potential for the unique combination of timbres between our instruments,’ said Akiho. ’It was an inspiring challenge to combine these sounds together, because all three instruments encompass a similar range of pitches.While each instrument is extremely unique as a solo sound, the combined timbres create an amazing homogenous texture.
Read more here.
The Strad: Hsin-Yun Huang: Life Lessons
When I was growing up in Taiwan, people either played piano or violin. I learnt piano, and when the time came to learn a second instrument, at ten years old I thought I may as well be useful and play something other than the violin! So I went to the orchestra office and asked what they needed, which was the viola. At first I didn’t take it very seriously, but it was with the guidance of conductor Felix Chen that I progressed to the level of being able to join the Menuhin School when I was 14. Every Saturday my friends and I would spend five hours at Felix’s house having lunch, drawing, singing, joking, playing sonatas and duos – just having fun.
The Strad
The Taiwanese violist on what she learnt from her early years, and her move to the UK’s Yehudi Menuhin School
When I was growing up in Taiwan, people either played piano or violin. I learnt piano, and when the time came to learn a second instrument, at ten years old I thought I may as well be useful and play something other than the violin! So I went to the orchestra office and asked what they needed, which was the viola. At first I didn’t take it very seriously, but it was with the guidance of conductor Felix Chen that I progressed to the level of being able to join the Menuhin School when I was 14. Every Saturday my friends and I would spend five hours at Felix’s house having lunch, drawing, singing, joking, playing sonatas and duos – just having fun. This sense of the joy of music was also emphasised by my father, who taught us to sing. He had such a fresh mind and was so open to the world.
I was part of one of the first generations in the Taiwan music scene to get the chance to go abroad. People often say, ‘You poor thing, it must have been so hard,’ but at the time that wasn’t the mentality I had. I felt so lucky to have the freedom to explore and learn. Only in retrospect do I realise I developed coping strategies for what was often a very difficult time. Chamber music became my medicine and my daily walks around the school taught me the importance of taking time for myself.
Read more here.
The Strad: Back to business: Postcard from Sun Valley
Following 2020’s Summer Season of broadcasts, this year’s Sun Valley Music Festival returned to free live performances, much to the delight of its thousands of fans, writes Laurence Vittes
Although the ski and summer resort area of Sun Valley, Idaho, is noted for the rich and famous celebrities who have been flocking here since the 1930s – from Ernest Hemingway and Marilyn Monroe to Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks and Matt Damon – it boasts a thriving cultural life, including the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference and Sun Valley Film Festival, and the brand new state-of-the-art Argyros Performing Arts Center. And then there is the 37-year-old Sun Valley Music Festival, led by music director Alasdair Neale, which draws 50,000 concertgoers annually to its free Winter and Summer Season events.
The Strad
By Laurence Vittes
Following 2020’s Summer Season of broadcasts, this year’s Sun Valley Music Festival returned to free live performances, much to the delight of its thousands of fans, writes Laurence Vittes
Although the ski and summer resort area of Sun Valley, Idaho, is noted for the rich and famous celebrities who have been flocking here since the 1930s – from Ernest Hemingway and Marilyn Monroe to Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks and Matt Damon – it boasts a thriving cultural life, including the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference and Sun Valley Film Festival, and the brand new state-of-the-art Argyros Performing Arts Center. And then there is the 37-year-old Sun Valley Music Festival, led by music director Alasdair Neale, which draws 50,000 concertgoers annually to its free Winter and Summer Season events.
After reinventing its 2020 Summer Season – with 14 original concert broadcasts brought to life by artists and production crews across North America – and receiving $2.8 million in donations to keep the concerts (including the Winter Season performances) free for everyone, the Summer 2021 Season came to full bloom as Covid-19 seemed to be retreating.
The Strad: Opinion: Relaxed body, focused mind
All art forms are mirrors of our inner selves. From writers to composers, from dancers to musicians, from artists to actors – the moment we are touched by inspiration, time stands still and we focus inward to create a transcendent artistic experience. It is every musician’s goal to communicate from the soul through music.
The Strad
Hsin-Yun Huang
The art of Chinese calligraphy has much to teach us about playing a stringed instrument, writes violist Hsin-Yun Huang
All art forms are mirrors of our inner selves. From writers to composers, from dancers to musicians, from artists to actors – the moment we are touched by inspiration, time stands still and we focus inward to create a transcendent artistic experience. It is every musician’s goal to communicate from the soul through music.
Ancient Chinese ideology taught that a cultured person was expected to study in six areas: etiquette, musicology, archery, chariot driving, literacy, and quantitative methodology and cosmology.
To explain each area further:
1. Etiquette encompasses human and social behavior. It includes law, management and communication sciences
2. Musicology includes music performance, popular culture, ceremonies, rituals and spirituality
3. Archery broadly represents martial skills, sports and gentlemen’s competition
3. Chariot driving stands for martial arts and physical culture
4. Literacy includes reading, writing, literature, history and philosophy
5. Quantitative methodology and cosmology stands for physics, arithmetic and mathematics.
Read more here.
The Strad: Why we should all be violists
What is a viola?
Walking down the street, meeting strangers the conversation often goes ‘So you play the violin?’
‘No, actually it is a viola.’
‘A WHAT??’
‘Well, it’s an instrument bigger than the violin, smaller than a cello.’
‘Oh, I see …. never heard of it! Good luck with THAT!’
As I write this, spell check is not allowing me to write the word ‘violist’, suggesting the word ‘violinist’ as a possible fix. Funnily enough, I too never heard of it when growing up in Taiwan 30 years ago. We young musicians were given the option to pick a second instrument as we entered the 4th grade. Knowing only that I didn’t want to play the violin like everyone else, I opted to play something that the orchestra needed. They offered me either the oboe or the viola. We had no idea what a viola was, but my father thought playing the oboe did not look too appealing, so the viola was what we settled on.
The Strad
Hsin-Yun Huang
Violist and teacher Hsin-Yun Huang makes the case for her instrument of choice
What is a viola?
Walking down the street, meeting strangers the conversation often goes ‘So you play the violin?’
‘No, actually it is a viola.’
‘A WHAT??’
‘Well, it’s an instrument bigger than the violin, smaller than a cello.’
‘Oh, I see …. never heard of it! Good luck with THAT!’
As I write this, spell check is not allowing me to write the word ‘violist’, suggesting the word ‘violinist’ as a possible fix. Funnily enough, I too never heard of it when growing up in Taiwan 30 years ago. We young musicians were given the option to pick a second instrument as we entered the 4th grade. Knowing only that I didn’t want to play the violin like everyone else, I opted to play something that the orchestra needed. They offered me either the oboe or the viola. We had no idea what a viola was, but my father thought playing the oboe did not look too appealing, so the viola was what we settled on.
Read more here.
The Strad: Bravo! Vail's Inside the Music with the Dover Quartet
In this video from this year’s Bravo! Vail festival, the Dover Quartet reflects on how the global pandemic has impacted them as individuals and as an ensemble and perform the 2nd and 3rd movements of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, Op. 74, ‘Harp’.
The players of the Dover Quartet are the cover stars of November 2020 issue.
The Strad
In this video from this year’s Bravo! Vail festival, the Dover Quartet reflects on how the global pandemic has impacted them as individuals and as an ensemble and perform the 2nd and 3rd movements of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, Op. 74, ‘Harp’.
The players of the Dover Quartet are the cover stars of November 2020 issue. To read our interview in which they discuss recording the Beethoven String Quartet cycle, click here.
The Strad: Bravo! Vail launches re-imagined summer festival following May cancellation
The Bravo! Vail Music Festival has announced a re-imagined summer season from 16 July - 6 August 2020 in Eagle County, Colorado. On the agenda are outdoor concerts in the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, a mobile performance stage bringing music to local communities, and online educational presentations. The festival re-launch follows the cancellation of all originally planned events in May 2020 due to coronavirus.
The Strad
The Bravo! Vail Music Festival has announced a re-imagined summer season from 16 July - 6 August 2020 in Eagle County, Colorado. On the agenda are outdoor concerts in the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, a mobile performance stage bringing music to local communities, and online educational presentations. The festival re-launch follows the cancellation of all originally planned events in May 2020 due to coronavirus.
The new programme features seven chamber music performances at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, including appearances by the Dover Quartet in Brahms, Haydn, Dohnányi, Mendelssohn and Barber; violinist and founding festival director Ida Kavafian and pianist and current festival director Anne-Marie McDermott in Beethoven’s complete Violin and Piano Sonatas; and violist Paul Neubauer and pianist Amy Yang in Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata. All seven of the concerts are open to a limited capacity audience and subject to social distancing regulations.
Read more here.