Fringe benefits
The annual Hong Kong Fringe Festival is back, riding the crest of a successful relaunch in 2025. Rob Garratt looks back on the legacy of an event that shaped the Western-music sensibilities of a generation and finds out about the highlights of its ongoing edition.
Happy memories
She has fond memories of discovery at HKFC over the years, especially while watching live jazz and blues music as a student. This is one of the reasons why Ng booked B-Jazz, described as Hong Kong's first all-girl big-band. Founded in 2024, the 16-piece outfit will present two distinct programs: a collaboration with swing dancers called Fringe Maze: Swing & Laugh Night, on Jan 2; and Lady Jazzy Night, a bopping set of jazz standards, on Jan 25.
Band leader Becky Liu promises "bold brass with swinging rhythms" at the latter show. The venue's "legacy of nurturing bold acts" makes performing a special occasion, she adds. "The Fringe Club's intimate heritage space amplifies our big band sound perfectly, fostering close artist-audience connections that fuel our classical-to-jazz transition."
New-music clarinetist Linus Fung recalls the club's formative role in supporting his classical chamber group The Timecrafters, by hosting a series of themed concerts that offered "unique venues with a vintage and intimate vibe," he remembers.
On Tuesday, Fung opened the festival's ongoing edition with Volte, a brand-new five-section electroacoustic-duo recital alongside Chris Cheung, utilizing modular synthesizers to reinterpret classical repertoire by Bach, Schubert and Rachmaninov, as well as 20th-century composers Arvo Pärt and Salvatore Sciarrino. The piece is named for repeat brackets in musical scores, which "bring us back into loops and eventually pull us out of them," he explains, inviting listeners to consider the circularity of life — from daily routines to the maxim that "history always repeats itself". A fitting work, then, to open a festival in a Grade I-listed building once used as a dairy farm depot!
