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ET25.3 A postcard from Hong Kong · The Downing Arts Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Downing Arts Podcast.
• 0:08
  This week I'm chatting to alumnus and cellist Adrian Choi about his musical
• 0:12
  journey since leaving Cambridge and what he misses most about Downing.
• 0:16
  But before we meet him, congratulations are due to alumnus Declan Hickey
• 0:20
  on his recent success in the worshipful company of Musicians Iver Merendt's
• 0:24
  Guitar Award. Declan is performing a number of concerts in the coming
• 0:27
  weeks in Lincoln and Saltaire. For more information, please see the show
• 0:31
  notes. And if you're an alumnus or an alumna engaged in
• 0:35
  the creative arts, do get in touch. I'd love to hear from you.
• 0:39
  Back in college, the Twining Eggington exhibition of student art is still
• 0:42
  on in the Hyung Gallery. Don't miss it.
• 0:49
  Here in the studio with me today is Downing alumnus Adrian Choi,
• 0:52
  who read Natural sciences here from 2020 to 2023.
• 0:56
  Wel, Adrian, it's lovely to see you again.
• 1:00
  Thank you for having me, Louisa. It's a pleasure to
• 1:03
  be here. So what have you been up to since you left Downing?
• 1:07
  So I'm now doing graduate medicine in Hong Kong. I'm based here
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  for the foreseeable future. So yeah, I'm doing medicine
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  at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In fact, today I've just
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  gotten word that I've passed my first professional examinations and
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  I can actually go and go on holiday in peace,
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  which is great. Congratulations.
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  Thank you. That's quite, quite a milestone. So you read
• 1:32
  Natural Sciences, but you also did a lot of cello playing and other things
• 1:36
  while you were here in Cambridge. So how
• 1:39
  did you manage to balance your studies and everything else that you were doing?
• 1:43
  Yeah, honestly, I don't actually know. People ask me this, I say
• 1:47
  I don't really do much balancing. I just kind of let it happen.
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  Yeah. And a lot of the time you were here obviously was during COVID so
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  music happened. It was all a bit weird, but it did sort of happen.
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  Did you have any particular things that. That really
• 2:02
  stand out for you from that time? Yeah, yeah. I remember when
• 2:05
  I first. Well, I mean, when, when I first had to move in with.
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  With my things and I received this email for Cuso
• 2:13
  edition, Cuso being a Cambridge University Symphony Orchestra.
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  And I was like, great, let me, let me send over a video clip
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  of myself playing the Beta Ver Magic Flute Variations and whatnot.
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  And then I did get in and we had about three rehearsals
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  where was about 10 string players
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  and no wins because they were banned.
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  And we tried to do some Mozart and then lockdown happened.
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  So we only really did two rehearsals of barely
• 2:42
  an orchestra before we went into lockdown. And that
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  was it for CUSA, really, that year in 2020.
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  2020 21, we did manage to host some
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  socials over Zoom, which I think is a canon event at this
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  point for every society. And, yeah, no,
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  we had a lot of fun, but, yeah, no, it was chaotic. It was
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  chaotic, but I feel we just
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  had to make the most of it. And of course, the next year,
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  in 2021, 2022, I think we
• 3:16
  rebounded by doing a bit too much, but, yeah, no,
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  it was great fun. And of course,
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  in the 2122 academic year, I became
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  Vice President of DCMS. And of course, no one knew
• 3:30
  how to run a society because Covid had wiped out an entire generation
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  of people who knew how to run societies. And so we were
• 3:37
  basically in the dark. I found very quickly
• 3:41
  that admin could be an extreme sport.
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  No, no, it's. I've done some pretty embarrassing
• 3:49
  shambolic admin things the past, but took
• 3:53
  us a year before we figured out how to actually run a society and an
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  orchestra. But I'm pretty happy with everything I've managed
• 4:00
  to squeeze in during my short, short time here. So, I mean,
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  I remember, well, the two things I remember sort of quite clearly from your time
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  with us, and one was Trumpington Street Orchestra,
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  but, yeah, we played this epic symphony. I can't
• 4:15
  even remember who it was by now. That's quite embarrassing, isn't it? Was it Faronk,
• 4:19
  somebody like that? Ooh, that was in 23,
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  right? 20. Okay, 23. Yeah. March 20. March 23rd.
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  Yeah, it was Emily Meyer. Oh, Emily Meyer, yeah. Sorry.
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  Yeah. So, so, yeah, no, that, that was a fun project.
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  I, I believe it may be. My source is maybe incorrect,
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  but I believe that might actually have been the English premiere
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  of that symphony, because I, I, I, I, I haven't actually found
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  any source of that piece being performed in England
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  before this, so. But, but of course, yeah, I might be
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  wrong, but to my knowledge, it is great. Yeah. And the other thing,
• 4:58
  of course, was the Peter and the Wolf performance, which was your sort
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  of swan song. I remember we did it in the,
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  in the Master's lodge. We were inside and the audience were outside.
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  Yeah, but it worked. I mean,
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  that must have been a lot of work for you. Yeah, I mean,
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  it all started off as a bit
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  of a fun thing to do after exams. I was like.
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  So I asked myself, well, how many friends can I get in
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  of all instruments of shapes, of different shapes and sizes?
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  And can I put on Peter and the Wolf?
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  Because that would just be Great banter. Well, and of course,
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  it was our former master Alan Bookbinder's last,
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  last musical engagement as master.
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  Yeah. We also collaborated with the theater
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  people. Right. I got Gina in to narrate it.
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  Yeah, yeah, no, it was, it was great fun to put on. Yeah. These May
• 5:55
  Week concerts are always good fun. But I don't know, perhaps one
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  of the most stressful things about them is the weather going to hold. You know,
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  are we going to have. If we have drinks and things outside?
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  But yeah, I think we did. I think we did. From what I remember.
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  Luckily the. Yeah, luckily the weather held up.
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  Yeah. So you did a lot of cello playing and other things
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  in Cambridge, but have you managed to do anything since you left? Are you still,
• 6:18
  you know, is music still very much part of your life?
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  Yeah, I try to make it part of my life.
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  It is difficult. I think it's always difficult to
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  balance this. I mean, graduate medicine is going to be
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  hard. Actually. My main job is actually research, so I do research
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  as a medical student at the university. So that's
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  actually my main engagement. I try to survive medicine on the
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  side, really. And then, and then I try to
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  squeeze in whatever music thing I can
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  find and, and hope that I get through. But. But I think
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  actually without music, I think it would. I don't
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  think I would be. I don't think I would survive really. You always need a
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  bit of. Of stuff outside your,
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  your main persuasion really, to be able to just
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  clear your mind from all that and then you can go on and go
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  and do something else and then you come back and hopefully your mind is refreshed
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  enough to keep thinking about whatever science and medicine and whatnot?
• 7:19
  I think it's incredibly important. Cool. And do you have
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  any particularly favorite composers or pieces of music or genres
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  or anything? So that's the question where I think my answer
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  changes every two weeks.
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  I think when I was 12 or 13, teen,
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  when I was still playing the piano, I would say that my favorite composer would
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  be Chopin because I loved his nocturnes and
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  mazurkers and waltzes. And then
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  probably I got round to liking
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  Elgar a bit because of course, as a cellist
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  you have the Elgar cello concerto. And of course I
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  think maybe when I was 16, 70, I started discovering all this other symphonic
• 8:04
  and choral works. I mean, Dream of Drontius has always been a bucket list item
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  of mine. I haven't gotten around to playing in one,
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  but it is a bucket list item, I think. And,
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  and maybe in 2022ish yeah.
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  When I was in my second year of directing Trumpington Street Orchestra,
• 8:22
  I discovered this composer, Samuel Coleridge
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  Taylor. I thought he wrote some pretty, pretty cool stuff. We actually
• 8:29
  performed this Hiawatha Overture in November of 2022
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  and that was great fun. Now, I would say it's
• 8:38
  a toss up between Bach and Shostakovich,
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  weirdly enough, which is
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  quite funny, of course, two very, very different styles.
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  But I think they have some deep similarity,
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  I think, in their music, that Bach, of course,
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  the master of the polyphonic style, and Shostakovich
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  using a lot of fugal writing in,
• 9:02
  in many of his works. In his, in his piano works.
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  Of course, it is in his symphonies, like his 11th Symphony and,
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  and yeah, of course, I've been going through the Bach Cello Suites again.
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  I think those are pieces which stay with you for, for life,
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  really. And, and each time you revisit them, you discover
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  new things that, that never thought of before, such as the depth
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  of those pieces. And it's
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  a very hard question, I think. Yeah, yeah, well,
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  sorry, but no, I think you're right. And of course,
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  there's been a lot of Shostakovich knocking around this year, what with it being the
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  anniversary and so on. We've had some amazing stuff happening
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  in Cambridge, actually. The Cambridge University Orchestra a
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  few months ago now did a concert of the
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  First Violin Concerto and Tahiti Trot Bizarre,
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  which was a lot of fun and sweet from the
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  Gadfly, which of course was written for. Well, it was a film score,
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  but it's. Yeah, it all works well together as a concert
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  and, yeah, it was great fun. So I don't know if Hong
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  Kong has been celebrating the anniversary of Shostakovich.
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  Has been much going on. I mean, I think there's been.
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  There have been some concerts, I think. I mean,
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  I think the Hong Kong Philharmonic is a particular fan of the Shostakovich
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  symphonies. I adore Jaap van Schwaden's recordings of
• 10:27
  the 5th and the 9th. I think they are excellent. Very underrated.
• 10:30
  Yeah, I think everyone should go check, check, check that recording out. Great.
• 10:34
  Great. Well, free advertising for it. Great.
• 10:38
  Well, thanks so much for chatting today. It's really lovely to see you again and
• 10:41
  congratulations again on the first milestone in your new medical
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  career and good luck with the rest of it. Yes, thank you,
• 10:48
  Louisa, it's great to see you.
• 10:54
  This week in college, the choir sing Evensong on Sunday at 6,
• 10:57
  featuring William Bird's fantastic anthem, Hake Dies. The organ scholars
• 11:01
  are very excited. The Take a Break Choir is happening again on Monday at
• 11:05
  five in the chapel. Come along and get your Disney fix.
• 11:08
  The first Music Society event takes place on Tuesday in the East Staircase
• 11:12
  Music Room at 5:30pm Ph.D. students Ina
• 11:15
  Kruger and Larry Wang will be performing a selection of songs by Samuel
• 11:19
  Barber and Madeline Dring. Ina tells me it's the texts
• 11:22
  which makes this program so fascinating. A mixture of monastic visions and
• 11:26
  monastic gossip sounds great. Further afield,
• 11:30
  just a reminder that alumna Savannah Patel's show, Work in Progress
• 11:34
  is on at Theatre Peckham on the 13th and 14th of May. See the show
• 11:37
  notes for details. Next week on the podcast,
• 11:41
  I'll be catching up with Imi Barnes and Denise Rabalo, who are both participating
• 11:44
  in the university's Advanced Popular Performance Scheme this year.
• 11:48
  Thanks for listening.