Sherbets of Summer from Lio Kuoman (廖國敏的夏日雪寶)

It's rare to see a Southern Chinese face directing the HKPO nowadays. But last night, it happened. We had Lio Kuoman, (廖國敏) a Macanese who first trained at HKAPA and then went on to America and has now conducted orchestras in Philadelphia, Ottawa, Seoul, Copenhagen, Taipei and Macau. As part of the Denim Classics, he offered us some summer sherbets, a rich cocktail mix of pieces from Copland, Mozart, Pachabel, Barber, Tchaikovsky, Mascagni and Glazunov spanning three centuries and an equal number of continents.

The concert began with a short explosion of brass: Aaron Copland (1900-1990) 's Fanfare for the Common Man. It continued with another surprise: with Mozart (1756-1791)'s Rondo in A Major K 386 with the precocious 12-year-old Johnson Li (李仲欣) at the keyboard, who played with a kind of skill beyond his years. Then it switched further back in time with Johann Pachabel'(1653-1706)'s Canon in D major.  It fast forwarded to a work by another America composer Samuel Barber (1910-1981): his Adagio for Strings., the only slow and sad piece of the evening. Then it flew half around the globe and switch to a completely different mood again. This time, it's Russia's Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) 's tempestuous Polonaise from his opera Eugene Onegrin from which it calmed down with Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945)'s Intermezzo from his most popular opera Cavalleria Rusticana before finally fading off into the golden joy of a Russian season of plenty with Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)'s Autumn from his ballet The Seasons. All the pieces were easy listening and have been favourites of the common folks but they were all conducted with verve by Lio, who gave them all a kind of lively festiveness seldom heard from the HKPO. And as desserts, he gave us more fireworks in the form of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and the concert ended with the audience clapping their hands in rhythm with Johan Strauss Sr.'s Radetsky March, as if we had our own Vienna New Year Concert.

It was a most relaxing evening. It was so not only for us but I believe for the HKPO members and its guest conductor as well.  Everybody had fun.