Lee is a featured soloist with pianists Lang Lang and Colleen Lee, and violinist Chuanyun Li for the China Philharmonic Orchestra’s concerts this July 2 and 3 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

“I’ve been looking forward to it and telling everybody about it,” he says. “And in Europe [where I’ve been performing quite a bit in recent years], it sounds like something very special because, obviously, it will only happen once. For all of us on stage that evening, it’s not only a musical but also an emotional event because we’re all celebrating something that we share – being one country and one people – and, at the same time, showing that we in Hong Kong are not only successful in business and finance but are able to celebrate culturally as well.”

Lee also has musical reasons for looking forward to the concert: it will be his first collaboration with the other musicians. He is very much hoping that “when we’re on stage and in front of the audience, we’ll be something special and inspired. If the chemistry clicks between the artists, [we] can do things spontaneously [we] never planned but which are very nice to hear.”

Furthermore, the programme includes Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C Major, Op 56, for violin, cello, and piano and, as Lee points out, “Beethoven may be the most important composer in classical music” though he never composed a solo concerto for the cello. So for a cellist, “to be able to play something by him with an orchestra – that’s a thrill, really! You know, not to be biased but I think it’s considered that the most difficult part is for the cello. I think most musicians will tell you that because it’s technically in the stratosphere for the cello. We’re always playing very high up where the violin should be. So, in essence, it’s very unusual in the cello repertoire.”

Harking back to his roots, for inspiration Lee often looks back to “the first generation of Chinese musicians who studied overseas because I can only imagine how difficult it must have been in a new place facing probably a lot of racism and scepticism about their abilities. When I’m in Europe, I go to some not so friendly places and I just try to imagine what it must have been like for the earliest overseas Chinese music students to have to play in front of people like that... I feel very lucky relative to what they must have gone through.” It was through the hardship of those pioneers he feels “people are more used to seeing Asian musicians, and Chinese musicians especially.”

And so while Berlin may be Lee’s favourite city for music, Hong Kong is really where his heart is. “I do try to come back as much as I can because my entire family is here and it’s nice that I can combine a visit to the family with work as well,” he says, though he has engagements all over the world. Nor is that the only reason Hong Kong is his first choice: “I want to come back because I love eating and I love Chinese food but also Hong Kong has so many different other foods.” Now, isn’t that spoken like a true son of the SAR!

Trey Lee will be performing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Colleen Lee and Chuanyun Li and the China Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yu Long on July 3 at the HK Cultural Centre’s Concert Hall. Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben will also be on the programme. The orchestra will be joined by Lang Lang on July 2 for Yin Chengzong, Liu Zhang, Chu Wanghua and Shen Lihong’s Yellow River Piano Concerto in a programme that also includes Guo Wenjing’s The Heroic Symphony. Tickets for the concerts have already sold out but both will be broadcast live on RTHK Radio 4.