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A cross-cultural collaboration that creates a new world order in music! The New Vision Arts Festival opens next month (October) with a concert featuring the Secret Garden, the legendary combo from Scandinavia, and two top musicians from mainland China, Ding Fei Fei and Ding Wei.
Their special performance not only marks the opening of the festival, but also rounds off Secret Garden's China tour.
Secret Garden with its distinguished blend of Celtic and Nordic sounds, is acclaimed for its refreshing and serene music-scape. Secret Garden's composer/keyboardist Rolf Lovland and violinist Fionnuala Sherry are heading for Hong Kong with their six-member band.
The Mainland's own international chart-topper, Ding Fei Fei, and her equally gifted sister, Ding Wei, are accompanied by some of the Mainland's top band musicians in the show.
Apart from taking turns on the stage, Secret Garden and the Ding Sisters will also collaborate on their signature tunes such as Secret Garden's "Nocturne" and Ding Fei Fei's "My Irish Friend".
The Ding Sisters will, for the first time, team up with special guest, operatic virtuoso Warren Mok.
Switching from violin to erhu and back, the opening concert promises to be a fusion of European and Chinese musical styles.
Lovland and Sherry are the leading members of Secret Garden. Lovland graduated from the Norwegian Institute of Music. He had won a Norwegian Grammy Award and the National radio chart's Song of the Year Award. Sherry graduated from Trinity College in Dublin.
After winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1995 with "Nocturne", Secret Garden launched their first album, "Songs from a Secret Garden", that topped the prestigious Billboard New Age charts in the US for two years. Secret Garden has gone on to produce five best-selling albums and has toured throughout Asia, Europe, South America and the US. They have also collaborated with orchestras including the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra in Norway.
Ding Fei Fei, an erhu major graduate from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, launched her career as a singer-songwriter in 2000 with great success. The British group Way Out West remixed her original hit "Forgotten Moon", making her the first Chinese artist to have a hit in the British singles chart. Fei Fei's current album, "Origin", has also captured critical acclaim.
Ding Wei, after graduating from the conducting and composition department of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, pursued a career in popular music. Her original number "Girl and String Quartet" received many prizes in 2000. Her latest album, "Dear Ding Wei", melds influences such as flamenco, electronica and unplugged, classical string quartet and world music.
New Vision Arts Festival's opening concert featuring Secret Garden, Ding Fei Fei and Ding Wei will be performed at 8pm on October 19 and 20 at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre.
Tickets priced from $120 to $380 are available at URBTIX outlets. Half-price tickets are available for full-time students, senior citizens, people with disabilities and Comprehensive Social Security Assistance recipients. Group booking discounts are up to 20% off.
Programme brochures are available at URBTIX outlets or at the website, http://www.newvisionfestival.gov.hk
For programme enquiries, call 2370 1044. Telephone reservations can be made on 2734 9009 and credit card telephone bookings on 2111 5999. Internet bookings can be made at http://www.urbtix.hk.
Ends/Monday, September 13, 2004
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