City Hall Concert Hall Reviewed: October 21 The Hong Kong Sinfonietta has established a reputation for introducing promising musicians - and composers - to local audiences. On Friday, under the baton of Yip Wing-sie, the group premiered a work by Samson Young Kar-fai and collaborated with young cellist Li Wei in a work by Tchaikovsky. Young, who was born in 1979, received his musical education in Hong Kong, Australia and the US. His new work How Perfumes are Transmitted by Feathery Telegraph, which opened the concert, takes its title from a line in the poem Bird by Pablo Neruda. It was a colourful piece juxtaposing screeching strings with percussion to create evocative aerial and odorous soundscapes, not to mention woodwind bird calls and resounding brass. The charm might lie more in descriptiveness than cogency or profundity, but there was much talent in it. Li appeared at the end of the first half of the concert. He played Variations on a Rococo Theme - a charming work that melds courtly grace with Tchaikovsky's warm-heartedness - with meticulous, gossamer lyricism. One or two technical slips didn't undermine the flow. The only major blemish was that he tended to keep a dreamy tone throughout, so his playing was too loose-limbed when a rugged argument might have been more appropriate. Yip (below) also conducted Sibelius' incidental music to Pelleas et Melisande and Schumann's Symphony No4. The end of the Sibelius and the opening of the Schumann brought out some poetry and drama. Otherwise, the Sinfonietta's technically foursquare playing needs more focus and subtlety.