Originally published 23 September 2021
Sharon Lui was born and raised in Hong Kong, and is a classically trained violinist. In 2016, inspired by French jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli, she started to play jazz manouche, engaging with different swing bands, playing in music festivals and live houses. She featured in Jazz Marathon Hong Kong 2019 on stage with French Manouche guitarist Angelo Debarre. In the same year she met the Cambodia-based jazz manouche band Nomades in Hong Kong and started a new music expedition in both the Hong Kong and Cambodian music scenes. You can catch her on Friday with Swing Time at the Palace Gate Hotel.
Do you have a pet musical hate?
Can’t hear myself when playing in a band – my violin is completely vanished when playing with very loud drum, bass and electric guitar, it needs to be proper miked (and if I’m lucky enough to have no feedback). Besides that, getting mosquito bites while I’m performing/ rehearsal, I’ll be totally annoyed.
27
A private musical indulgence:
Cantopop. It has all the genre, Pop, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Bossa Nova, Disco, funk, musical, EDM, Folk, French Swing, Japanese city pop, etc. It shaped my music taste since I was small. And the lyrics are, figurative enough to make me sit down and savour the story behind the song.
The year you first came to Cambodia: 2019.
An early music memory:
I danced along with a Cantopop disco beat music when I was 4.
The last thing you had to eat: Bugs.
A country you want to visit: Laos.
A book or movie you keep going back to:
Wong Ka-Wai’s In the mood for love. I enjoy immersing in his slow- paced, vague storyline. His movies feature a lot Tango, Cuban, Minimalist music which shaped my musical taste when I was young. Besides, it’s the invisible, discrete but strong emotion tension between the main characters, often I need to guess how they are feeling, every time I re-visited, I have a new insight. People say Wong Ka-Wai doesn’t give any script to actors, he lets them experiment and improvise under a brief framework. I particularly love the performance of actor Tony Leung.
What languages can you speak?
Cantonese, Mandarin, English, a bit of French.
Your primary instrument, and when you started playing it: Piano, at the age of 5.
Something people might be surprised to know about you: That I love dancing with 70s/80s Disco beats in a party.
You have a time machine and a magic ticket to one gig or festival in the past. What do you choose?
Definitely Stephane Grappeli’s concert in San Francisco in 1997. He was playing with Martin Taylor and his band in a vineyard, I feel immensely joyful while he played all the Django tunes and old swing classics, he played You are the sunshine of my life as encore. It completely blew my mind and I was in a moment of eureka. Stephane Grappelli is always my all-time favourite jazz violinist.
28
A question from the last participant, Phil O’Flaherty: What role, if any, does computer technology play in your music making?
A lot. With an iPad, I can set up my own home recording studio, it helps me to listen to myself closely, I can study the acoustics of my instrument in different mic setting, the kind of sound I like with simple mixing. Also, overdubbing, making fun homemade music videos with my friends; even collaboration remotely. In addition, a music slow-down app, which helps me to learn jazz solos, listening to the detail nuance of a band.