16 January 2025
Hong Kong, HKSAR

The release of APPARITION, my new collaboration with Hong Kong Ballet, is finally out and has already surpassed seven thousand views on social media platforms- this highly collaborative work, conceived with Giorgio Biancorosso, written with, and performed by, Anandi Bhattacharya, with Joby Burgess on percussion, choreographed by Yuh Egami, and (marvellously) danced by Shen Jie, the principal dancer of Hong Kong Ballet, is yet another leap into the unknown and the interdisciplinary. The project also wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible CGI by Patrick Conaty and editing by Lauryn Vania Kurniawan, not to mention support from two universities in Hong Kong, the University of Hong Kong and the Academy of Music at HKBU. The project had a long lead time all the way up until release but something so futuristic will always feel new no matter when it’s out. Considering it’s my first release of the year, I’m delighted it’s finally public.

Earlier this week, I spoke at the Education University of Hong Kong on the topic of holography and technology in the arts- a familiar topic by now and one that is evolving along with my work. That brings to mind future projects, including one in development which may bridge world and classical music far more ambitiously than anything I’ve worked on before. The beginning of the year has also brought it with huge changes at the Academy of Music, where we’ve moved into a new building that surely sets the standard in all of East Asia of what a conservatory might be- it is truly a visionary place, and the product of my colleague, Johnny Poon, who, no matter the obstacles in Hong Kong, brought it to life in record time.

It is tempting to rehash ambitious plans for the year (and beyond!), performances of my existing large-scale projects, and so on, but during these beautiful sunny winter days in Hong Kong, I am more inclined to focus on the present, and desperately fleeting, moment. Only through such stillness does any new music come, and given I have not written anything again for a rather long time, I am perhaps more eager than anything to open a fresh notebook, glance at those empty pages, and, rather than being intimidated by all that’s possible, to, instead, think beyond it, into the impossible, and turn it into sound.