Ho Chi Minh City's grand colonial-era opera house has a date worth pencilling in this October. On the 10th at 8pm, the HCM City Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO) stages a one-night concert pairing a French-trained violinist of Vietnamese heritage with one of the country's most promising young pianists.
The evening opens with Antonín Dvořák's Carnival Overture from 1891, a fizzing, festival-flavoured crowd-pleaser. Violinist Stephane Trần Ngọc, born in Paris to Vietnamese roots, then takes the stage for the Violin Concerto by composer Hoàng Cương — a work he frames as a chance to carry Vietnamese melodies and heritage onto the concert platform. His credentials are serious: he finished violin and chamber music studies at the Paris National Superior Conservatory of Music at just 15, later earned a doctorate from The Juilliard School, and has won top prizes at the Paganini, Lipizer and Long-Thibaud competitions, including the 1990 Long-Thibaud Grand Prix. He has soloed in more than 30 countries and now heads the strings department at the London Performing Academy of Music.
Pianist Lưu Hồng Quang covers the heavyweight end of the programme with Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, written in 1858 and widely considered one of the most demanding concertos of the 19th century. Quang trained at the Việt Nam Academy of Music and in Australia, took a master's in Montreal under the celebrated Đặng Thái Sơn, and is now completing a doctorate in New Zealand. His competition haul includes the Lev Vlassenko in Australia, the Euregio Piano Awards in Germany and the Oleggio in Italy.
Meritorious Artist Trần Vương Thạch conducts. The former HBSO director has taken the orchestra to stages across Germany, Italy, Scotland, Spain, France, Tokyo and Korea, and France awarded him the title of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2020 for his work on cultural exchange between the two countries.
For travellers in Ho Chi Minh City in early October, this is a rare chance to see world-class Vietnamese and Franco-Vietnamese soloists on home ground — and to do it inside one of the city's most atmospheric buildings. The Saigon Opera House, at 7 Lam Sơn Square in District 1, dates from 1897 and sits amid the French Quarter's cafés and colonial facades, so dinner before the show is an easy add-on. Tickets are sold at the venue box office and via ticketbox.vn.
Even if classical concerts are not usually your thing, the setting and the price of a night out here make it a low-risk, high-reward evening. District 1 is easy to walk or ride-hail to from most central hotels, and the 8pm curtain leaves plenty of room for a late dinner afterwards on Đồng Khởi or Nguyễn Huệ walking street.
