Vietnamese-French violinist Stephane Trần Ngọc will be the featured soloist with the HCM City Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO) at the HCM City Opera House on July 13. — Photo courtesy of HBSO

HCM CITY — Vietnamese-French violinist Stephane Trần Ngọc will be the featured soloist at the HCM City Opera House on July 13.

The concert titled “Masterpieces for Violin” will feature works by French composers.

Ngọc’s performance will be supported by the HCM City Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO) under the lead of veteran conductor Trần Vương Thạch, HBSO’s director.

Ngọc, a concertmaster for the Danish Chamber Players, will open the concert with Havanaise, a composition for violin and orchestra based on the habanera rhythm by Saint-Saens.

The 10-minute piece was written in 1887 for Cuban violinist Rafael Diaz Albertini.

Ngoc will continue with Thais by Jules Massenet, a piece for violin and orchestra in the composer’s opera of the same name written in 1894.

Ngoc will also play Poeme by Ernest Chausson in 1894, which is considered his best-known and most-loved composition.

After the intermission, Ngọc will perform Cinema Fantasie from Darius Milhaud’s surrealist ballet Le Boeuf sur le Toit (The Ox on the Roof).

Milhaud originally wrote the work in 1919 as a score for a Charlie Chaplin film.

When Milhaud returned from Brazil, he wrote a ballet about the carnival in Rio based on a composition with a scenario by French playwright and designer Jean Cocteau. The ballet premiered in 1920 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.

The concert will end with Tzigane by Maurice Ravel and dedicated to Hungarian violinist Jelly d'Arányi. It was first performed in Amsterdam in 1924.

The Paris-born Ngọc graduated in violin and chamber music at the Paris National Superior Conservatory of Music when he was 15 years old.

He later received a master’s degree at Brooklyn College’s Conservatory of Music and a doctorate in musical arts from The Juilliard School in the US.

He has won top prizes at several international competitions, such as the Lipizer Competition and the Long-Thibaud 1990 International Competition.

Ngọc has performed as a soloist in over 30 countries with orchestras, including the Radio-France Philharmonic, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic, and the Shinsei Symphony Orchestra.

He has also worked as a violin teacher at the National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Lyon and the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in the US.

He plays on a 1709 Gobetti violin, which was made by a great Venetian violin maker.

The concert will begin at 8pm at the Opera House at 7 Lam Sơn Square in District 1. Tickets are available at the venue’s box office. — VNS