bc magazine

Udderbelly Festival – 4 December, 2015 – 14 February, 2016

It’ll be interesting to see over the next couple of months if the ‘there’s nothing to do in Hong Kong’ brigade will open their wallets to support the inaugural Udderbelly Festival Hong Kong which takes place at the Central Harbourfront event space from the 4 December-14 February. Centered around the iconic Udderbelly, a 410-seat pop-up theatre in the shape of an upturned cow (specially brought to Hong Kong from the UK) the festival features a smorgasbord of shows and will sit alongside The AIA Great European Carnival. The Udderbelly cowshed will be full of entertainment, music, food, comedy (lots of comedy) and family fun throughout the holiday season. Udderbelly has proved a huge hit with audiences at the Edinburgh Festival for over 10 years and on London’s South Bank for the past seven.

Udderbelly Festival
Date: 4 December, 2015 – 14 February, 2016
Venue: Central Harbourfront
Tickets: see individual event
More info:
Check the events diary for schedule

Dirty Boogie Rockabilly Festival

Let’s crank up the music, embrace the fashion, the hairstyles and relive the Rockin’ 1950’s!

The Dirty Boogie Rockabilly Festival returns in full swing with an awesome musical line up.
Los Rizlaz (Japan)
The Bembol Rockers (Philippines)
The Boogie Playboys (Hong Kong)
Miss Cathy (Hong Kong)
DJ Dave “Wobbly” Ross (UK)

Live Tattoo by Starcrossed Tattoo
Live Hair Grooming by Edwin Watch X Crows Nest Barber Shop

The music. The clothes. The cars. The dancing. What’s not to love! Book now.

Dirty Boogie Rockabilly Festival
DBSFZ Rebel Society
Date: 8pm, 14 November, 2015
Venue: Grappa’s Cellar
Tickets: $280, $260 (Advance)

T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

T.S. Eliot’s seminal poem, The Waste Land, comes to life in this new, dramatic adaptation.

Internationally renowned cellist David Pereira teams up with actor and Chinese University of Hong Kong professor Julian Lamb to bring you a fusion of music and spoken word which will appeal to aficionados of The Waste Land as well as those who have never encountered it.

T.S. Eliot’s haunting vision of a spiritually barren post-war Europe is brought to life in a performance which draws out the poem’s vast array of characters as well as its rich lyrical language. Dramatic presentations of The Waste Land are rare since it is often regarded as too difficult to perform. A performance of The Waste Land with live musical accompaniment is almost unprecedented.

The Waste Land is the most influential poem of the twentieth century. It is written in short, interconnected fragments, each one offering a glimpse of humans coming to terms with a world which they find increasingly confusing. For nearly a century, readers have been haunted by its images, amused by its comedy, and absorbed by its vast array of characters.

The music will feature passages of improvisation, original composition, and direct quotation from the work of some of the most important composers of the twentieth century, including Sibelius, Shostakovich, and Schoenberg.

“Julian Lamb and David Pereira bring clarity to ‘The Waste Land’,” Canberra Times

“An utterly inspiring performance,” The RiotAct, Canberra

The Waste Land
Shadow Players
When: 22-27 September
Where: Kwai Tsing Theatre, Black Box Theatre
Tickets: $230 ($170 Seniors, Students) from Urbtix
More info:
22-26 September – 8pm
26, 27 September – 4pm
Free Seating
For each purchase of 5-10 standard tickets 10% off, 11-15 standard tickets 15% off, 16+ standard tckets 20% off

Tallis Vocalis: Victoria’s Requiem @ All Saints’ Church – 28 June, 2015

Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Requiem is widely regarded as the greatest masterpiece of Renaissance polyphony. Tallis Vocalis will perform this great work in their second concert entitled ‘In Memoriam’, on 28 June 2015 at All Saints’ Cathedral, Hong Kong.

To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, the concert brings together music written in the Renaissance period and the present day on the theme of remembering those we have lost. Victoria’s Requiem was written for his patron the Holy Roman Empress Maria. This Spanish work sets itself apart from its English and Italian Renaissance contemporaries by its mystical intensity of expression achieved through the simplest musical means.

The Requiem will be interspersed with four contemporary works: Arvo Pärt’s Da pacem Domine (a tribute to those who died in the 2004 Madrid bombings) and The Woman With the Alabaster Box (which references Jesus’ burial); James MacMillan’s A Child’s Prayer (written after the Dunblane massacre in 1996) and John Tavener’s Song for Athene (a tribute to his friend Athene Hariades).

Christopher Watson, of The Tallis Scholars and Theatre of Voices will conduct the concert.

In Memoriam
Tallis Vocalis
Date: 8pm, 28 June, 2015
Venue: All Saints’ Cathedral, 11 Pak Po Street, Mongkok, Hong Kong
Tickets: $250, online reservation commences 1 June 2015
More info:
Programme
Victoria: Requiem (Officium Defunctorum 1605)
Pärt: Da pacem Domine
Pärt: The Woman With the Alabaster Box
MacMillan: A Child’s Prayer
Tavener: Song for Athene

KK Live

KK may have started his career with a single line in the song “chhod aaye hum..” in the movie ‘Maachis’ but over the last 19 years he has gone on to sing over 500 songs in various languages and remains today one of the most successful Indian male playback singer with hits songs like Tu ne maari entryaan (Gunday), India waale from the Shah Rukh Khan Starrer, (Happy New Year) and Yaara re (Roy) to name a few.

Some of his best known hits include:

Tadap tadap (Hum Dil de chuke sanam)

Main hu Don (Don)
Aankhon mein teri (Om Shanti Om)

O meri Jaan (Life in a Metro)

Tu hi Meri shab hai (Gangster)

Piya Aaye na (Aashiqui 2)

Alvida (Life in a Metro)

Khuda Jaane (Bachna Ae Haseeno)

Desi Boyz (Desi Boyz)

Kya mujhe pyaar hai (Woh Lamhe )

A dynamic stage performer, the multi award winning KK love to entertain with his mix of romantic songs and peppy dance numbers.

KK Live
Red Peppers Entertainment
Date: 8pm 18 June, 2015
Venue: KITEC, Rotunda 3
Tickets: $1,250, $750, $550, $350 from Cityline

A Russian Sacred Feast @ HK Cultural Centre – 7 June, 2015

Sergei Rachmaninoff is among the most popular composers of “classical music,” his works beloved for their intensely romantic melodies and rich harmonies. Some of his tunes have even been adapted for popular songs (“All by Myself,” “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again,” etc.). In Hong Kong he is best known for his piano music, especially two of his four concertos, but he also wrote outstanding symphonies and operas, as well as two major extended, unaccompanied choral works that reflect his deep Russian Orthodox piety: the Liturgy of St. John Chrisostom (1910) and the All-Night Vigil (also known as the Vespers), completed five years later.

Orthodox Christian practice forbids the use of instruments (other than bells) in church music, limiting its sound to that of the human voice. Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil finds its roots not only in traditional Russian sacred chant, but also in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s pioneering, elaborate choral setting of the same service. The Hong Kong Bach Choir, which in January 2005 sang a single movement from this magnificent work in a program of Vespers selections, here offers a more extended selection, chosen for the beauty and variety of the individual pieces.

As with Rachmaninoff, the theme of Orthodox Christianity plays a prominent role in the music of Rodion Shchedrin, perhaps the most illustrious living Russian composer (the Carmen Ballet, Anna Karenina – also a ballet – the opera Dead Souls, and five Concertos for Orchestra, among many others). But while his choral masterpiece The Sealed Angel (1988) incorporates sacred Orthodox texts, in the Church Slavonic language, it blends them with themes from Nikolai Leskov’s eponymous story. As the composer wrote, “The religious feeling runs through Leskov’s story. As though golden spangles of initial lines of Orthodox liturgical chants sung by Leskov’s Old Believers in hard times are scattered here and there.” In the end, the work is a modern Russian secular liturgy based on canonical Orthodox texts, and results in music of surpassing sensual beauty.

Programme
Sergei Rachmaninov: Selections from All Night Vigil, Op. 37
Rodion Shchedrin: The Sealed Angel

Performers
The Hong Kong Bach Choir
Featuring Soloist: Megan Sterling, Principal Flute of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra
Music Director & Conductor: Jerome Hoberman

A Russian Sacred Feast
Hong Kong Bach Choir
Date: 8pm 7 June, 2015
Venue: HK Cultural Centre, Concert Hall
Tickets: $240, $160, $80 from URBTIX
More info:
10% off: Members of the Law Society of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, Hong Kong Institute of Architects, Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors, Hong Kong Arts Administrators Association
15% off: Friends of the Hong Kong Bach Choir
50% off: Full-time students, senior citizens, people with disabilities and the minder, and CSSA recipients

Hong Kong Summer Jazz Festival – 3-9 June, 2015

The guest artist at this year’s three concert 5^th Hong Kong Summer Jazz Festival, organised by the Hong Kong Big Band Jazz Federation, is legendary saxophonist Bob Mintzer – who has been a member of grammy award wining band the Yellowjackets for over 30 years.

Also appearing is award winning composer and saxophonist Andy Scott who was part of Apollo Saxophone Quartet with festival Musical Director Jon Jon Rebbeck for 10 years in the 90s – during which time they commissioned a sax quartet from Bob Mintzer… Who later performed and recorded with Scott’s Sax Assault band. A Hong Kong version of Sax Assault featuring Mintzer, Scott, Rebbeck will perform at the festival’s second concert on the 8 June

The opening concert features Mintzer and Scott performing a selection of ‘crossover’ works with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, which also incorporates a rhythm section of Yoyong Aquino, Sylvain Gagnon, Anthony Fernandez and Rebbeck.

The final concert features Bob with the Saturday Night Jazz Orchestra in a retrospective program, a chronological journey through Bob’s career featuring music of the bands he wrote for and performed with; Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Buddy Rich, Jaco Pastorius and of course his own band.

As part of the festival Bob Mintzer and Andy Scott will host a Jazz Acadamy from 3-5th June at Hong Kong University which will include a variety of open rehearsals/workshops and masterclasses. On 6th June Andy Scott presents his popular ‘Sax Day’ in which the focus is a large saxophone orchestra, giving Hong Kong Saxophonists a unique ensemble experience. See the full schedule at details of how to participate at the festival website www.bbjf.org.hk

Festival Programme
3-5 June: Big Band Jazz Academy
6 June: Andy Scott’s Saxophone Day
7 June: City Strings Jazz – Bob Mintzer and Andy Scott with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong Strings
8 June: Sax Assault Hong Kong! a unique group of 9 saxophones and rhythm (Sopranino to Bass!) featuring Bob Mintzer
9 June: Big Band Avenue – 70s New York Jazz, The Saturday Night Jazz Orchestra with special guest Bob Mintzer

Hong Kong Summer Jazz Festival
Date: 3-9 June, 2015
Venue: HK City Hall
Tickets: $340, $260, $180 from URBTIX

Linkin Park in Shenzhen

I know we write about Hong Kong and Macau, but it’s ok to nip across the border to the North every now and then.

Linkin Park – The Hunting Party Tour
Date: 7:30pm, 19 July, 2015
Venue: Shenzhen Bay, Nanshan Sports Center (Spring Cocoon)
Tickets: RMB 1,800 (Floor), 1,200(Floor), 600, 400, 200 from www.228.com.cn