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SCMP Reporter

City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong
February 2, 8pm
Hong Kong City Hall
Do a Google search for 'Ang Li' and the top two of several thousand results produce information about the Oscar-winning director of Lust, Caution and Brokeback Mountain, known as Ang Lee to western cinema goers but Lee Ang to Chinese speakers.
However, the Ang Li who will be playing Chopin's Piano Concerto No.2 in F Minor with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong is not the 55-year-old filmmaker but a 23-year-old pianist.
The winner of several awards, including  first prize and five special prizes at the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal  (OSM) Competition in 2003, Li, left, will make her Hong Kong debut at  this February 2 concert.  City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong (CCOHK) chief conductor Jean Thorel will wield  the baton.
Thorel (inset) says  he and Li have not previously crossed paths  but has little doubt  the Chinese pianist is a 'rising star' in the classical music world.
Li will perform Chopin pieces for the concert: Chopin mainly composed for  solo piano and wrote only two concertos, both of them using  piano as the main instrument.  'These piano concertos are less symphonic than, for instance, the concertos of Schumann or Beethoven,' Thorel says. 'The orchestra remains like a discreet partner.'
He  believes  Chopin's concertos  are better suited being  played by smaller orchestras so the sound does not overwhelm the featured instrument.  'As far as the size of the orchestra  is concerned, the CCOHK is the perfect size,' he says.
The  CCOHK also  will play Arvo Part's Cantus in Memoriam, Benjamin Britten and Haydn's Symphony No73 in D Major, La Chasse, at the concert.
Part, an  Estonian composer, uses English composer Benjamin Britten's name in his work's title  because he admired him greatly and was inspired to compose a meditation on death to mourn Britten's passing, Thorel says.
'Part discovered and really loved Britten's music but regretted that he never had the chance to meet Britten before his death at the age of 76,'  he says.
In the work he makes use of the  compositional style known as 'tintinnabulation'.  Its  name is derived from the Latin tinnabulae, meaning 'of bells',  and it  incorporates bell sounds.  Part is famed for this technique.
The final piece in the programme also features some sounds that are unusual in a classical music concert.  Thorel says Haydn  'enjoyed hunting immensely and was very good at it'.
Hunting was also a popular theme of  18th-century musical culture. The result of that mix is a  Haydn symphony with a subtitle that translates as English as The Hunt,  complete with horn  hunting calls.
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Ang Li Plays Chopin