11 March 2025
Hong Kong, HKSAR

Funny- one year ago just here I wrote about completing a new string quartet movement and somehow already twelve months have passed since that B major chord and it’s time to resolve it. The new work is directly related in that it follows that first movement, commissioned by Quatuor Arod, but the end deliverable is truly a polar opposite. This will serve as the score of an immersive, 3D video created by Alejandro Rodriguez for JUMPSTARTER, an Alibaba event to be held in Hong Kong later this month. The score, indeed the second movement of the String Quartet no. 2 (2024-25), was written in barely a week and recorded by the AURA String Quartet in Hanoi, Vietnam. It’s a hugely quick turnaround but, indeed, a new addition to the portfolio and yet again, something wholly new for me. 

Hanoi was breezy and cool, a great contrast to the monsoon’s game of chess these days in Hong Kong. But it was also a chance to discover the city anew and properly, given that my only other time in Vietnam was a brief birthday trip in 2018 where Hanoi served as a brief transit point for a two-day cruise in Ha Long Bay. Discovering this cosmopolitan and rather gritty city now, amidst Vietnam’s economic boom, was really the perfect brief dash away from Hong Kong. And working with the AURA String Quartet, a new and excellent group based in Hanoi, gave those light and happy touristic days an added weight of musical accomplishment.

Next week I’ll be speaking at the HKAAA on the topic of AI in cultural management and leadership and, alongside that, in final preparations for the European premiere of The Once and Future (2021) in Antwerp, Belgium with the Berliner Philharmoniker musicians conducted by Stanley Dodds with, of course, the incredible vocalist Anandi Bhattacharya singing the solo role. This time, I am also tremendously proud that a new and truly tour-de-force costume has been designed for Anandi by the cult Latvian fashion designer, and my namesake of sorts, Bruno Birmanis. Beyond being simply the European premiere of the work, I see it as a fresh start for the work in a particularly appropriate venue- de Singel in Antwerp, Belgium.