Hong Kong Music Series, London

Chinese and British art fuse in Hong Kong, from where a brand news series of arts events for London arrives for three weeks in July.

The first Hong Kong Music Series opens at St John’s Smith Square (7 July) with Music Interflow – A Dialogue of Two Cultures, in which pianists, a string quartet and singers perform complementary pieces from the western and Chinese classical and contemporary repertoire.

On the same night, and also on 8 July at Wilton’s Music Hall, Hong Kong Episodes paints cityscapes in music and projections. Artists include the jazz guitarist Teriver Cheung, and the first Hong Kong composer to be commissioned by the BBC, Fung Lam.

Hong Kong Episodes paints cityscapes in sound and light. Photo: Wandering Photography

Also at Wilton’s (10-11 July), Music Lab conjures up three pieces: Fingerman, for piano; Beloved Clara, about composer and pianist Clara Schumann, and her influence on fellow composers Brahms and Robert Schumann, her husband; and SMASH, a no-holds-barred fusion of pop, classical and jazz.

Beyond the Senses (15 July) at the Shaw Theatre, St Pancras, is a piece of Chinese music theatre by composer Wing-Fai Law, combining traditional instruments, poetry, song, dance, visuals and traditional kunju opera.

The festival closes (27-28 July) with Datong: The Chinese Utopia, at Richmond Theatre, where singers and instrumentalists chronicle the life of the 20th-century Chinese scholar Youwei Kang.

We can look forward to some brilliant string playing and striking visual effects in this three-week celebration of the artistic alchemy that happens when East meets West.