Lunchtime Recital Hiu Lam Lo (Clarinet) and Phoebe Long-Ching Yu (piano)

It was a great pleasure to have Hiu Lam and Phoebe back with us (they were last with us in March 2023) and we quickly learned Hiu Lam was known as Chilli in her family (the spice not the country). Well I knew from last time that Chilli’s playing was magnificent in range, depth, tone, and passion. But I associate Chillis with hot, and that’s a risky word to associate with any young lady – so easily misinterpreted.

They launched into Brahms Sonata in F minor Op.120 which Chilli later described as rich, intense and harmonic. They followed it up with three of the four movements of Time Pieces by Robert Muczynski, a Polish American Composer. Chilli had found the piece by chance in her music library and decided to give it a go. She’s really liked it and had played it a number of times . Over lunch, we learned that it was quite a challenge for Phoebe to accompany her – but one she had clearly mastered.

The final piece was the Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano by Joseph Horovitz, an Austrian-born British composer, who had written lots of music for woodwind instruments. He’d been very influenced by jazz styles of music and this Chilli told us was particularly evident in the third movement.

Ah jazz, I could relax. It’s OK to describe a jazz musician as hot. You can listen to the Horovitz piece and decide for yourselves!