Histoires Croisées : France - Hong Kong

‘The intimacy of chamber music’ The Strad. Hailed by Gramophone as a ‘Prodigy’, cellist Trey Lee and his critically acclaimed ensemble, Musicus Soloists Hong Kong, present this concert celebrating the launch of their new album, Histoires Croisées: France - Hong Kong.

To bring these stories to life on stage, the brilliant musicologist and radio and television presenter Pauline Lambert joins them as narrator, to unveil three little-known stories of intercultural collaboration and charity, tracing how French and Hong Kong communities enriched one another from the mid-19th to the early 20th century through a dialogue between French and Chinese musical traditions.

The programme bridges the discovery by a French missionary of Hong Kong's emblematic flower, the Bauhinia blakeana, and Bazelaire's arrangement of Couperin's Pièces en Concert.

It recalls the Sisters of Saint-Paul de Chartres and their charitable work, with a world premiere arrangement of Ravel's Ma Mère l'Oye for Western strings and Chinese instruments.

It approaches the 1894 plague epidemic through the shared context of Alexandre Yersin of the Institut Pasteur and Chan Man-tat's Billowing Waves. The composers Ng Cheuk-yin and Alfred Wong close the evening with a vibrant portrait of modern Hong Kong.

Joining the ensemble Musicus Soloists Hong Kong on stage will be musicians of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and dancers from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.