What was the Paris Opéra Ballet like six decades ago? My Uncle Arnold was posted in France after the Second World War in 1946. A dedicated music aficionado, he could hardly wait for his furlough to attend the ballet. This

Feng Yi Ting on Luminato Fesival’s 2013 playbill attracted me in a similar way that The Infernal Comedy featuring John Malkovich attracted me in 2010. The former was Canadian film and stage director Atom Egoyan’s modern interpretation of the Chinese

The Roman Liturgy consists of texts and rites that make up a sacred service. One form of service, inherited from ancient Jewish practices, developed into the liturgy of the Divine Office, also known as the Canonical Hours. The Divine Office

For many years people believed that Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) had died from tuberculosis. Not only was he known for his chronic coughs, breathlessness and haemotypsis (coughing out blood), ‘tuberculosis’ was also cited as the cause of death on his death

“I hope my reed makes it through the performance… It’s so hot in there, my tuning’s going to go out the window… This shirt’s so uncomfortable… And why, to top it all off, am I performing from memory?!” These can

Can one cook an authentic Chinese meal without ever having had a taste of the cuisine? It would be safe to say that the above would prove extremely tricky. As with most other things in life, it is hard to

The Counter-Reformation, also known as the Catholic Revival or Catholic Reformation, began with the Council of Trent in 1545 and ended at the close of the Thirty Year’s War in 1648. A direct response to the Protestant Reformation, it sought

Two years on, the question remains: what, exactly, is Hong Kong’s University of Science and Technology doing dropping gobs of money to invite top-class musicians from around the world to spend two weeks on a campus without a music department?