12-11-2013 The Works

Look for images of beautiful women in art, and among the most beautiful will be Sandro Botticelli''s images of the Goddess Venus. Right now, you have the very rare chance to see one of the Renaissance master's Venus paintings right here in Hong Kong. The version on show here is one of several versions that Botticelli painted in the 1480s and was possibly the model for the Uffizi Gallery's "Birth of Venus".
The Hong Kong People's Fringe Festival was founded just last year. It's an open-access multi-arts festival that encourages local artists to promote the fringe culture in various communities, find new spaces for arts purposes, and to enliven the city and the hearts of its people. Overseas artists from such places as Canada, the US, Japan, Taiwan, Poland, Switzerland and France also take part. The festival includes all kinds of art but on November 2nd it was music that took centre stage as the People's Fringe Festival held a nine hour Music Fairground at the Lee Shau Kee school of Creativity.
Maestro Lorin Maazel has been in Hong Kong for two weeks, conducting the Hong Kong Philharmonic, to celebrate the bicentenary of Richard Wagner and the centenary of Benjamin Britten. His visit, dubbed the Lorin Maazel Fest, included workshops with young musicians and three concerts, two nights Maazel's own "The Ring Without Words", based on music by Wagner, and one night of Benjamin Britten's the "War Requiem". For "The Ring Without Words", the maestro distilled 18 hours of Wagner's Ring Cycle of operas into a single 70-minute orchestral piece.
Take a Taiwanese-British pianist Chiao-Ying Chang, a Korean violinist Sulki Yu, and an Australian cellist Pei-Jee Ng, put them together, and you get the London-based Fournier Trio. The trio was set up in just 2009, but is already making a name for itself. Recently they visited Hong Kong. While they were here, they came to our studio to talk to Ben Pelletier.