Australian composer Brett Dean wants Hongkongers to open their minds at chamber music festival

New music – two words that strike fear into the hearts of many concertgoers. Unfamiliar, intimidating, even atonal; for those who feel safe with familiar favourites, late 20th and 21st century music can prompt such assumptions.

But Berlin-based Australian composer Brett Dean wants audiences at the 8th Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival to not only open their minds to new possibilities, but to become virtual filmmakers.

“Audiences are confronted by all sorts of music when they go to the cinema. Some is rhapsodic and film-like, but a lot is not so far removed from contemporary music in the concert hall. I encourage people to imagine something [when listening to new music] – to make up your own film if you like. I think that can help trigger responses and a sense of fantasy.

“New music can be good at that because it is not coming with a pre-packaged set of responses. Familiar music can often remind you of a particular time,” says Dean, also a conductor and internationally renowned viola player, who will be the festival’s first composer-in-residence.

Dean admits to being a film buff. And he sees a comparison between his role as a composer and that of a filmmaker: “I love film. I love the fact that, like a piece of music, it unfolds in a certain space of time. Filmmakers, like composers, have a concern with how time unfolds, how do you choose it, when do you make a dramatic shift.”