New programme to explain the role of the conductor

At last year's Know Your Ballet Music programme, both Hong Kong Sinfonietta (HKS) music director Yip Wing-sie and John Meehan, artistic director of the Hong Kong Ballet, were left in no doubt that the audience wanted more of the same.

The follow-up programme will take place on December 1 and 2, and will pick up from where they left off, with Yip and Meehan guiding the audience through developments in dance following the Tchaikovsky era.

'Last time we focused on the dancers,' said Yip. 'This time we will touch more on the role of the choreographer, with John once again giving the historical perspective on the subject.'

The composer-impresario relationship between Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Diaghilev was fractious at times, but it did produce some of the greatest ballets of the early 20th century.

'We've put quite a lot of emphasis on Stravinsky,' Yip said. 'We'll present excerpts from both The Firebird and Pulcinella, contrasting with sections from his massive Rite of Spring which have been specially arranged for the HKS forces on this occasion.'

The story will also present other music associated with Diaghilev's famous Ballets Russes; Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune and de Falla's The Three-Cornered Hat.

November 2 and 3 will see the latest programme in the Shortcut to Classical Music series, this time presenting the Story of the Conductor. Simultaneous projections will show clearly what is happening on stage during the performance and give details of what is going on in the score.

'We'll be starting with pieces led by the players themselves and move to an explanation as to why the conductor's role was born,' said Yip.

One of the tests of a conductor's mettle is in a concerto context, so parts of a bassoon concerto will be used to demonstrate how the conductor needs to show sensitivity in both following and anticipating what a soloist might do.

It wasn't until after completing her violin studies in Britain that Yip began to study conducting seriously, and the first signs of talent sprouted while she was still quite young.

'My father is a conductor, and I sang with my two sisters in the children's choir he formed. Whenever he needed to leave a rehearsal to answer the phone or deal with an urgent administrative matter, I simply got up and continued conducting the choir until he returned,' she said.