Ching Opera in HK Festival; Andion Fernandez in cast

MANILA, Philippines - “Before Brabant,” the latest opera by Manila-born, celebrated international composer Jeffrey Ching, premieres at the Hong Kong Arts Festival on March 18, 8:15 at the Hong Kong Ampitheatre.

Commissioned by the HKAF, Ching’s latest chamber opera is based on Robert Copland’s “The Knyghts of the Swanne” (1521), one of the many sources of Wagner’s Lohengrin which is set in Brabant.

The world premiere features soprano Andion Fernandez, Ching’s wife for whom he has created leading roles in several of his principal works, US-based tenor Stephen Ng, Hong Kong artists Lio Kuokman, conductor, Louise Kwong and Apollo Wong.

The prolific Oxford and Cambridge scholar Ching, in more than 280 compositions, explores the cross-cultural influences of various music traditions, seeking to remove the conventional barriers between East and West, ancient and modern. His opera Daswenkind (The Orphan) was described as “a stroke of genius” by Erfurt’s Thuringer Allgemeine, its sensational success enthusiastically received by the public and widely covered by media.

“Before Brabant” comes after other of Ching’s vastly admired world premieres in Pamplona, Magdeburg, Dessau and Berlin in the latter half of 2013.