Leonidas Kavakos and Enrico Pace’s unforgettable all-Beethoven recital at HKAF in 2014 was acclaimed with a standing ovation and demand for encore after encore.;Invited to return at the first opportunity, this time they play richly melodious works by four different composers: Schubert, Beethoven, Strauss and Korngold. Once again they demonstrate a perfect musical partnership;An artist of rare quality and sought after worldwide, Kavakos won the Sibelius Competition at 18 and the Paganini Competition at 21. He has been honoured by the Berlin Philharmonic as its Artist in Residence, and by the Vienna Philharmonic as the first instrumentalist to play and conduct its glamorous and celebrated annual Ball. His distinguished discography of award winning recordings includes some with recital partner and chamber music virtuoso, Enrico Pace, winner of the 1989 Utrecht International Franz Liszt Piano Competition.;Kavakos plays the “Abergavenny” Stradivarius of 1724. 

A trail-blazing political reformer and visionary thinker at the turn of the 20th century, Kang Youwei (1858–1927) envisioned a global utopia of human equality and solidarity. However, his advocacy of a constitutional monarchy, instead of a revolution, has caused him to become the bête noire of modern Chinese history. Datong: The Chinese Utopia focuses on this Guangdong native’s years of exile in Europe, Asia and America, as he and his daughter Kang Tongbi campaigned for a better future for their compatriots at home and abroad—which culminated in an anti-American boycott (1905–1906) to beat back the Chinese Exclusion act, and two meetings with a conciliatory Theodore Roosevelt. Writer/filmmaker Evans Chan, a descendant from Kang’s hometown, used his award-winning film Datong: The Great Society (2011) to develop the libretto for this chamber opera.

Trio Dushkin is a collaboration between three versatile musicians: David Fung, Best Performer of Chamber Music at the 12th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition; cellist Jonah Kim, who The Washington Post called “the next Yo-Yo Ma”; and violinist Dennis Kim – guest concertmaster on four continents with such conductors as Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Muti and Sir Simon Rattle.;The trio takes its name from violinist, Samuel Dushkin, a Polish expatriate who commissioned, premiered and transcribed numerous important works. Like Dushkin, these three fine artists are also expatriates, forging new ground for piano trio with original transcriptions, commissions and performances of new work.;The concert takes theme remembrance and tribute. Shostakovich’s somber composition remembers his friend Ivan Sollertinsky, and also all victims of war. Tchaikovsky famous Trio in A minor was dedicated “to the memory of a great artist”, his friend and teacher Nicolai Rubinstein, while Arvo Pärt’s Mozart-Adagioarrangement expresses the composer’s sorrow at the untimely death of violinist Oleg Kagan, his friend and renowned Mozart interpreter.