21 March 2024
Hong Kong, HKSAR

I am, once more, in between things- in between new works, with the all-too-concise String Quartet no. 2 (2024) finished and to be premiered later this spring by the Quatuor Arod, but not yet at the stage of writing the next, large-scale multidisciplinary work for Manchester International Festival; in between travels, having just returned from a brief but rewarding trip to Delhi and Rajasthan, and looking forward to a return home to the United States for Easter; in between homes, almost, as I’ll be returning my Sham Shui Po apartment at the end of April, and moving to somewhere else, still unknown, in the late summer. It’s a (by definition) tentative place, this in-between, full of anticipation and anxiety but also healthy and exciting: this is where a pivot, a leap forward, takes place, something to turn that buzzing incoherence into a happy whole.

And that anxious excitement also extends into some other realms, like, soon, sharing the video+audio of Vivacissimo (2023) from its world premiere at the tail end of last year, as well as some announcements related to touring The Once and Future (2021) with new staging and costumes in Europe in 2025, as well as, in fact, a schedule of performances for the new String Quartet no 2 for the summer. All that- soon, indeed.

The precious few moments of silence and peace in between the travels, the work that seemingly keeps piling up, creative, entrepreneurial and occasionally academic too, allow a little bit of time for dreaming, too. New approaches to transcending (or, should I say, transgressing?) the classical music boundaries, new ideas for presenting work more ambitiously and fearlessly, not to mention new expectations of work ethic from collaborators and partners- on occasion I realise the privilege of even raising the issue of high standards and values which Hong Kong offers and many other places don’t. Even when so much of the city’s cultural potential is compromised or even buried by the unfortunate state of the cultural leadership, there’s so much that’s exciting, that’s good, that’s practically revolutionary. I’d rather be nowhere else.