Merry Christmas!

We have some goodies for everyone this festive season. In this week’s show we’re welcoming some friends back to talk about a very special project. The Lincoln Center in New York City is home to eleven performing arts organisations. It’s one of the world’s leading performing arts centres, and offers a variety of programming that includes music, dance, opera, theatre, cinema and more. One of the buildings among the complex is the Jazz at Lincoln Center. Two years ago, Hong Kong guitarist Eugene Pao, pianist Ted Lo, drummer Antony Fernandes and bassist, Sylvain Gagnon went there to perform, an event that resulted in a new CD. And they are here to tell us all about it.

Later in the show, we are featuring some dance tunes. And the person spinning those tunes is French DJ and producer, Romain FX. He’ll be here to tell us why he considers Hong Kong’s disco scene in the 1970s and 1980s to represent the epitome of desire. But first, while Hong Kong’s disco beats and Cantopop sounds may have attracted Romain, for one of his fellow French expatriates here, architect Daphné Mandel, it’s the city’s quieter side and more distant past that has encouraged her to stay and create.

As part of its 25th anniversary celebrations the Karin Weber Gallery is featuring a group exhibition by local artists called "Palatable Parables". It’s focusing on how different aspects of culinary tradition can influence art and shape cultural narratives and identities.

Over the centuries there have been many different artistic schools, styles, and movements in traditional Japanese painting. By the 19th century the art form revealed the influence and synthesis of native Japanese aesthetics and ideas imported from Chinese and Western art. Pushing the synthesis further, in his different styles contemporary artist Hisashi Tenmyouya says that he wants not only to revive Japanese traditional painting as contemporary art but also to rebel against the authoritative art system.

The aim of the Osage Art Foundation’s "South by Southeast" project, initiated in 2015, is to develop and advance perspectives on Southeast Asian art. This exhibition, "Stemflow: South by Southeast" is the third edition. Curated by Patrick Flores and Reuben Keehan, this third edition brings together 19 artists from Asia and the South Pacific to examine not only the interconnectivity but also the cultural subjectivities of the two regions.

The third edition of Tai Kwun’s Prison Yard Festival is back this month with a programme that highlights both local and international musicians. One group of musicians featured is the Australian Chamber Orchestra. The string ensemble is showcasing music that fuses Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” with original compositions by Egyptian-born, Sydney-based oud player and composer Joseph Tawadros. He's with us in the studio now, along with several of the orchestra members.

It’s the third edition and the final year of the three-year Sai Kung Hoi Arts Festival, organised by the Tourism Commission, supported by the Hong Kong Geopark and curated by a cross-disciplinary design team. We featured the festival’s first year in 2022. This year, the organisers say the aim is to focus on interactions and encounters.

Kurosaki Akira and Nakabayashi Tadayoshi, both born in 1937, are leading figures in post-war Japanese printmaking. The University Museum and Art Gallery in the University of Hong Kong is currently presenting an exhibition of around 650 of their works that highlights not only their differences but also how their approaches gradually converged.

The world is a stage for Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan. At 38, she has already made her debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the 2023 BBC Proms, and this year she opened the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s classical summer season at the Hollywood Bowl. She’s just ended a five-year stint as Principal Conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, and before that spent five years with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra as principal guest conductor. She’s conducted orchestras in Amsterdam, Oslo, Finland, Berlin, Paris, Cleveland, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, and is currently making her debut in Australia with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. On the way to Australia, she returned to Hong Kong at the end of November to conduct a few concerts with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. We managed to catch up with her.

Tobacco’s been consumed in China, mostly in pipes, since the 16th century. During the Qing dynasty though, possessing or smoking tobacco was punishable by death. But for those who still craved nicotine, snuff, or powdered tobacco, claimed to be a remedy for various illnesses, was available. Like other medicines, it was carried in small bottles: “snuff bottles”. There were often decorated, and that is a unique art form that continues to inspire some contemporary artists.

This month, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts is presenting programmes produced by their students from the School of Dance and School of Drama.
One of the drama productions taking place this week is “A Midsummer Night’s Drunk,” a Cantonese adaptation of Shakespeare's somewhat similarly named classic.

Rachel Sutton is a singer-songwriter and actor from London. Her debut album in 2020, “A Million Conversations”, consisted of original compositions and covers. Her second is already in the pipeline. This week she’s in Hong Kong to showcase her original work, some classics from the American songbook, and new songs from her upcoming album. And she’s here to give us a sneak peak.

A few weeks ago, we mentioned on the show that 2024 has been celebrated as the year of Czech music. It’s been celebrated by an array of concerts and events, featuring not only classical music but other musical genres. Later in today’s programme, we’re joining in by featuring two Czech musicians who visited Hong Kong at the end of last month.
But before heading to the Czech Republic, we’re focusing on a natural material that is quintessentially Asian. In Hong Kong, you’ll most commonly see bamboo used for scaffolding around buildings, for making furniture, or even for steaming dim sum. It can also be a versatile material for artists.

Gustav Mahler was born in eastern Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. On the relationship of Czechs to music, Mahler oncesaid, “Where else can you find a nation that has such a rich musical tradition as the Czechs?” That’s a tradition being celebrated in 2024, in the year of Czech Music, a festival organised once every decade that this year is highlighting the work of Bedřich Smetana, the “father of Czech music”, born exactly two centuries ago. Celebrations in the country, particularly in Prague, have been in full swing throughout the year. Some have even made their way to Hong Kong. In late October, the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong invited two Czech musicians, harpist Kateřina Englichová and oboist Vilém Veverka, to join them in playing some Czech classics.

For more than two decades, the Asia Art Archive has been building, collecting, creating and sharing materials on the recent history of art in Asia. Many of its resources are free for public access. One of its recent projects introduced the archival concept and process to local students.    

Japanese Zen monk Kanho Yakushiji is known for taking Zen-inspired music to a worldwide audience. His music videos have earned over 50 million views. He was in Hong Kong for a one-night concert late last month as part of an Asia tour. We went to speak to him.

Sherine Wong once competed in track and field events at the Asian Junior Games. She’s been the winner of the Ms Malaysia Universe competition and has also worked as a model, but she says her true passion is music, particularly jazz. Two years ago, she joined us to introduce her duo concept album “Two For the Road”. Her new album is “3 & More”, and she’s here with three and more of her musician friends to tell us more.

Tang Kwong-san was born in Guangzhou in 1992. His father brought him to live in Hong Kong when he was five years old. Five years later, his mother joined them.
Today that childhood separation from his mother and the experience of uprootedness and dislocation still influences much of his art.

Born in 1987 in Chongqing, visual artist Tao Hui is now based in Beijing. He was awarded his Bachelor’s degree in oil painting at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2010.
His video and installation works are cinematic, often bringing together traditional folklore and popular culture to examine contemporary society. On show at Tai Kwun Contemporary until 2nd February 2025, "In the Land Beyond Living" is Tao’s perspective on human conditions in contemporary China.

Reggie Yip was previously the lead vocalist of the now disbanded indie band and beat-making group R.I.D.D.E.M. In her new incarnation as a solo singer she goes by the name, “Reggie the Leaf”. She’s with us right now to tell us more.

Later on this week’s show, a trip to the Baltic region for a sample of “Polish Impressions”. Taking us on that musical journey is the Baltic Neopolis Orchestra founded in Szczecin, Poland in 2008. But before venturing to Central Europe, we’re heading somewhere much closer to home, to the north eastern New Territories of Hong Kong. The three-century old Hakka village of Kuk Po is currently the centre stage for an ongoing community cultural project.


"House Warming” is the inaugural exhibition of YA! YOUNG ART after launching its new art space in Horizon Plaza, Ap Lei Chau. Carrying a dual meaning of its title, it celebrates the opening of this fresh creative venue with a metaphorical "housewarming" to invite guests, while also examining how contemporary art can redefine our understanding and experience of modern living spaces and the concept of "home".