Cellist-ial tunes: British conductor Colin Metters and cellist Guy Johnston will be on stage this week for a special concert to celebrate 40 years of Viet Nam-UK diplomatic relations. — VNS File Photos

HA NOI  (VNS) — World renowned British conductor Colin Metters will return to Viet Nam this week for a special concert to celebrate 40 years of Viet Nam-UK diplomatic relations.

He will be accompanied by Guy Johnston, a British cellist who won the 2000 BBC Young Musician of the Year award.

The concerts, which will be held on Thursday and Friday at the Ha Noi Opera House, will feature the Roman Carnival Overture by Hector Berlioz, Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 5.

Ninety musicians from the Viet Nam National Symphony Orchestra (VNSO) will take part. Talented young Vietnamese conductor Tran Nhat Minh from the HCM City Ballet, Symphony Orchestra and Opera will be assistant conductor.

Tickets are available at the Opera House, 1 Trang Tien Street; Sketch Travel, 25 Truong Han Sieu Street; and Shop P, 8 Nha Chung Street. Students with valid student ID will receive a discount.

Metters was director of Conducting Studies at the Royal Academy of Music for 30 years, from 1983 to 2013. He has given master classes in Germany, Poland, Finland, Australia, Venezuela, Viet Nam, China and the US.

He was invited to Viet Nam for the first time 16 years ago by the British Council to begin a training project for the Viet Nam National Symphony Orchestra. It became one of the most successful and longest UK-Viet Nam cultural partnerships.

In 1999, he was awarded the Cultural Activists Medal by the Vietnamese Government, the first to be offered to a British citizen. His work in Viet Nam was featured in a BBC documentary titled Harmony in Ha Noi, directed by Anthony Fabian in 2003. — VNS