'They say conductors start having fun when they're 60,' says Jason Lai as he leans back in the Cultural Centre cafe sipping a mug of tea. Flicking a mildly concerned look, he adds: 'I'm only 28.'
To a passer-by, he could be a Hong Kong model, dressed in a trendy black shirt, jeans and taekwondo plimsolls. ('They're comfier to conduct in.')
British-born Lai rose to prominence by winning this year's prestigious BBC Young Conductor's Workshop competition that led to his appointment as assistant conductor of the BBC Philharmonic.
In a matter of months his public exposure has blossomed (his face graces British TV advertisements for the BBC Proms). When he isn't busy conducting, he jets around Europe for master classes with the world's greatest conductors.
Britain flaunts Lai's talent, but his roots are in the New Territories. His parents, Lai Wing-ning and Lai Lau Po-siu, were chefs who left their families in Yuen Long in 1964 to emigrate to Grantham, Lincolnshire, where Jason was born. By the age of 11 it had become clear the boy, who scurried home with Bach's musical scores that he would read 'like you read books', had a musical gift. A few years later, he had moved to the Chetham School of Music in Manchester to study cello and piano. 'Those years were probably the most important time so far,' says Lai. 'You develop a different mentality in a city, which I think you need as a musician. You can't be provincial. You've got to see the broader picture, you need to experience independence, be a bit scared sometimes.'
At Chetham, Lai was always putting his ideas forward at rehearsals, which prompted his friends to ask, 'Why don't you conduct?'
'When I went to Oxford [to study music theory] I started organising groups to conduct, then in my second year I was appointed the conductor of the Oxford University Philharmonia. After that I was hooked.'
