Hong Kong Arts Festival 2010
Hong Kong Sinfonietta: Ning Feng Plays Brahms
Chinese Star Violinist début in Hong Kong
"He (Ning Feng) has real talent and musicianship to go very far." Lord Yehudi Menuhin
Ning Feng Plays Brahm’s Violin Concerto
Winner of the prestigious Paganini International Violin Competition in 2006, “the violin wizard” Ning Feng mesmerizes audiences and critics wherever he plays. Gramophone commented that he was able to bring the great virtuoso Paganini’s “most extreme flights of fancy to life with exceptional beauty and precision”. In the upcoming 2010 Hong Kong Arts Festival, the award-winning violinist will join Music director/ Conductor Yip Wing-sie and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta in performance of the great Violin Concerto by Brahms.
Programme also include the world première of local composer George Lam’s new commissioned piece The Gestures of Farewell. This piece was written for narrator and orchestra and will be narrated by Artist Associate Jason Lai. The orchestra will also perform Stravinsky’s witty work Jeu de Cartes.
The concert will be held on:
4 March 2010 (Thu) 8:00pm at HK City Hall Concert Hall
Tickets: $360, $220, $140
For further information, please contact Ms Amanda Mok, PR & Communications Manager:
Email：amanda.mok@hksinfonietta.org Tel: 3607 2328
For photos, please download from http://www.hksl.org/eng/media/imageLibrary.aspx or contact Ms Amanda Mok.
Hong Kong Arts Festival 2010
Hong Kong Sinfonietta
Great Violin Concertos: Ning Feng Plays Brahms
Music Director/ Conductor: Yip Wing-sie
Violin: Ning Feng
Artist Associate/ Narrator: Jason Lai
4 March 2010 (Thu) 8:00pm
HK City Hall Concert Hall
Tickets: $360, $220, $140
Programme
George Lam The Gestures of Farewell, for narrator and orchestra (world première)
Stravinsky Jeu de Cartes
Brahms Violin Concerto in D, Op 77
NING Feng Violin
Since winning 1st Prize at the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand in 2005 and the 51st Paganini International Violin Competition in Genova, Italy in 2006, offers have been flooding in from all over the globe for performances with this young virtuoso. In 2007 alone he appeared by invitation in Boston, New York, Tokyo, Beijing, Rome, Moscow and Berlin, as well as other cities in Germany, Netherlands, Italy, France, China, Canada and New Zealand. An extensive orchestral tour this year, with multiple débuts throughout Asia, Australia, New Zealand, as well as in the USA and Germany, makes him one of the fastest-rising violin stars in the world today.
Ning Feng was born in Chengdu, China, where he started the violin at age four. He studied at the Sichuan Music Conservatory, and in 1998, he was invited as a full scholarship student to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London. There he participated in a masterclass with the late Lord Yehudi Menuhin, who invited him to perform in Germany at one of the last concerts he organised.
In June 2003, Ning Feng became the first student ever to be given a perfect score (100%) for his final recital (end of study exam) in Royal Academy of Music’s almost 200 years of history, and was elected as an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM), an honour reserved only for graduates who have achieved distinction in their profession.
In 2005, Ning Feng 's first solo CD (now sold out) was released in China, and he has also made recordings for JVC Records and Triton Records in Japan, and Cypres Records in Belgium. His latest CD, Mr Paganini was released on Channel Classics in the Netherlands in 2007.
Ning Feng is based in Berlin, where he has just completed his studies with Antje Weithaas at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler". He plays a Peter Stefan Greiner violin (Bonn 2007).
Jason LAI Artist Associate/ Conductor/ Presenter
Jason Lai is Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s Artist Associate for the 2009/2010 season. A cellist, pianist and composer by training, Jason Lai was Assistant Conductor to the BBC Philharmonic from 2002-2005 as the winner of the BBC Young Conductors Workshop. He has conducted such orchestras as the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic, and made his BBC Proms début with the BBC Philharmonic in 2003. Apart from conducting in Europe and Asia, he is also a broadcaster for the BBC and a keen educator. For more information, please visit www.jasonlai.co.uk.
George LAM Composer
George Lam lives in Durham, North Carolina, and is pursuing a PhD in music composition at Duke University. Recently, George has been interested in writing music that directly engages with everyday life, exploring the intersection between music, theatre, and the documentary. George is currently working on a new documentary opera about the legacy of Durham's cigarette industry, created from collected interviews, oral histories and archival materials.
George's music has been performed by Volti (San Francisco, CA), American Opera Projects (Brooklyn, NY), Red Clay Saxophone Quartet (Greensboro, NC), Boston University Concert Band, Charles River Wind Ensemble (Boston, MA), Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Hong Kong Voices and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta. George was a Schumann Fellow at the 2006 Aspen Music Festival and School's composition master class, as well as an Angus Allnatt Foundation Fellow at the 2004 Dartington International Summer School. Other recent fellowships and residencies include American Opera Projects’ Composers & The Voice workshop series, the Virginia Arts Festival John Duffy Composers Institute, and the 2007-08 Volti Choral Arts Laboratory commissioning and residency program.
George holds degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music and Boston University, and is co-artistic director of Rhymes With Opera, a new opera company dedicated to bringing new opera and music-theatre into unexpected spaces. For more information, please visit http://www.gtlam.com.
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Hong Kong Sinfonietta is the Venue Partner of the Hong Kong City Hall
Hong Kong Sinfonietta is financially supported by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative region
Hong Kong Sinfonietta reserves the right to change the programme and artists
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