Mengla Huang and the HK Sinfonietta

I attended the HK Sinfonietta concert last night. I was looking forward to listening to Mengla Huang live after listening to his CD. It was his first time to play a concerto in HK (not sure whether it was his debut though).

The concert hall was full. Many youngsters attended. And I suspect because of this, the hall was quite noisy during the performance - mobile phones rang, endless coughing, one of the girls sitting in front of me slept with her body lying sideway, children were complaining about the Elgar Concerto being too long, chatting, you name it. It was the worst occasion that I have been to. I think LCSD should seriously consider disallowing children of 12 years of age or below entering the hall.

Mengla Huang was charming. He was full of confidence. His bowing was good, in the sense that he produced some very full and bright sound in the Elgar. There is no problem for him in playing the difficult parts of the concerto. His technique was even better demonstrated in his encore piece, which was a showoff piece and got a lot of left hand pizzicato. What is interesting is that his interpretation of the Elgar was actually quite mature (especially in the second movement). In fact, it surprised me that he chose this relatively unpopular piece as the first concerto to play in HK.

Incidentally, I saw Lee Chuan Yun attending the concert as well. Mengla Huang was probably more charming than Lee Chuan Yun in terms of appearance. I am looking forward to attending Lee's concert with the HKPO playing Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto this summer. I am sure it is going to be an event for music lovers.