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Vincent Mak

City Chamber Orchestra

Hong Kong City Hall, Concert Hall

One show on Monday

The five-year-old City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, which last year won  the  Arts Development Council's 'Rising Artist Award' in music, is a relatively new group worth keeping an eye on.

The ensemble - famed for performing in full, multi-coloured evening gowns instead of the standard black - stands out by  performing music  off the beaten track  but not difficult to digest. It continued to do so at its latest concert, on Monday at City Hall, where its members displayed professional skills. They deserved a larger audience than they got.

The concert was titled 'Bird Symphony' and three of the four works performed were associated with birds.

We had contemporary Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara's  Cantus Arcticus,   where the  composition  is combined with pre- recorded sounds of Arctic  birds.

Conductor Andrew Massey  had difficulty balancing the orchestra with the recorded sound, but otherwise successfully navigated  the score, eliciting a committed  performance, notably from the flutes and principal cello. The work's romanticism is deceptively simple  but  displays a wonderful sense of colour and texture, so  a short movement could sound as expansive as a Bruckner symphony.

The concert also included Ottorino Respighi's  The Birds, which benefited from limpid playing from the woodwind and horn principals as well as zestful violins. In addition, there were two flute concertos: Mozart's K.314   and Vivaldi's The Goldfinch. The guest soloist, flautist Jane Rutter,  played with style, but was not perfect in the fast passages and sometimes stretched the beats quirkily. Moreover, Vivaldi played on a modern flute might sound a  bit metallic. Massey guided the orchestra to provide sensitive accompaniment, and David Chung's harpsichord continuo  was a delight in  both works.



Ensemble in sync with symphony of colour