Who was this world premiere for?

A Frenchman went to Scotland to premiere a concerto on a Chinese story that became a Japanese TV series.

Did anyone pause to wonder why the audience should turn up?

Review by Hugh Kerr of Edinburgh Music News:

… The new work was a world premiere Oboe Concerto, written for Francois Leleux by his old friend, French composer Laurent Petigirard. It was named ‘Souen Wou K’ong ‘, based on the Chinese novel ‘Journey to the West’ which tells of a Buddhist monk’s travels from China to India with three companions in search of sacred scriptures. This became better known by the Japanese TV series ‘Monkey’, which was very popular in Britain. The work certainly tested the ability of soloist Leloux and he shone in playing a difficult work. His attempts to conduct as well as playing were less convincing. He rightly played towards the audience with a score in front of him, and occasionally turning towards the orchestra and waving his oboe, but the players largely had their eyes on the score. The music itself had some melody it wasn’t totally ‘plinky plonky’ and you could tell it was trying to create the oriental atmosphere of the journey. Leleux certainly was on top of its intricacies, but I have to say I found it underwhelming…. My opinion of the work was confirmed by most of the audience I spoke to at the interval. Unlike some critics I am very interested in what people think of the performance and most were pretty negative. The harpist Eleanor Hudson confirmed that it was a very difficult work for the SCO to play; and they did it very well, but I still found it underwhelming….
Read on here.