3 February 2025
Hong Kong, HKSAR

A second new year has passed in barely a month – the lunar new year or, as it’s always referred to here as Chinese New Year – and with day after day of beautiful, occasionally chilly weather in the city, it feels as if spring is already at the doorstep. This consistent time in Hong Kong has given me a series of beautiful sunsets to admire from the new apartment and a newfound appreciation of Hong Kong from what was my very first neighbourhood when I moved here in 2017, a whopping eight years ago. The amount of ambitious and exciting projects, great and lifelong friends, and, finally, a true home in this place seems to confirm that the time has not gone to waste.

APPARITION keeps racking up views, passing ten thousand on Instagram and three thousand on Facebook. But while the success of its virtual distribution has been highly encouraging, I’m also excited that the European premiere of The Once and Future (2021) is approaching closer and closer (see it on the Calendar page as well), and very soon to be announced, the German premiere of Russia : Today (2020) with EXAUDI at the Kühlhaus, Berlin as part of the Into the Open festival. The former will be a new staging by Giorgio Biancorosso with a brand-new costume developed with fiberoptic technology from Lumigram and a design by Bruno Birmanis, a collaboration about which I’m tremendously excited!

There are also some great developments in Hong Kong, too, with the official opening of the new Academy of Music building just weeks away, and planning for the 2026 Asian premiere of Os dias mais longos e os mais curtos (2022) also in advancing stages. That piece, coming off a three-year period of intense productivity for me, seemed (and perhaps, still seems) like it said it all. And in that moment of dark depths of the pandemic, dreaming of the bright future, it surely was. We live in a suddenly very different time now, and yet, while that bright future did not materialise in quite the way one imagined, it is still here, as are we. Music should say something about it. I suppose I will, in good time.