HCM CITY — English conductor and orchestra trainer Colin Metters will wield the baton at the HCM City Opera House on Friday, as the city's Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO) performs Vietnamese and international compositions.

The concert will play Lost in Dreams, a work for vibraphone and string orchestra written by Nguyen Manh Duy Linh and continue with Sand Dunes composed by Vu Viet Anh, a graduate of the University of Auckland. The work is for piano, percussion and orchestra.

Linh and Anh are two of leading young talents with the HBSO.

The orchestra will also perform Piercing The Vault for oboe and symphony orchestra and Enigma Variation for symphony orchestra, composed by Michael Williams of New Zealand and Edward Elgar of the UK, respectively.

The evening will open with Beethoven's overture from Fidelio.

Colin has conducted many of the major symphony orchestras in the UK, Poland, Spain, Germany, Australia, Singapore, Venezuela, the US, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, France and Greece.

In 1997 Colin was invited to Viet Nam to conduct orchestras in Ha Noi and HCM City and was subsequently appointed principal guest conductor and music advisor to the Viet Nam National Symphony Orchestra.

He has been honoured by the Vietnamese Government with the order given to those who make significant contributions to cultural development in the country.

The concert will open at 8pm on Friday at the Opera House on 7 Lam Son Square in District 1. — VNS