The remarkable sisters Hina and Fiona with just two years difference between them as indeed their Guadagnini violins of 1753 and 1755.

The two sisters in their early twenties were both mentored from an early age by Pressler and Perleman .They are indeed two jewels, one in blue and one in red, but with one voice.

A series of transcriptions commissioned by them of Mendelssohn and Schubert were played as one .

When Maximilian Maisky added his ethereal playing to Schubert there was magic in the air as the music took wing with three young musicians listening to each other and recreating the F minor Fantasy as I am sure the composer in the last year of his life would have envisaged it.

But it was the Andante and Rondo capriccioso of Mendelssohn which opened the recital that was so remarkable. The two sisters passing the musical line from one to another with an intensity and mastery that made one wonder why Mendelssohn wrote it for the piano instead of for this extraordinary combination. Each listening to the other with a sense of balance that through all the intricacies the musical line was paramount . Mendelssohn’s beautiful Andante found its true voice with the violin that could penetrate the very soul of the music with wings of song . An extraordinary transcription that mirrored the original but adding more colour and impish good humour to the Rondo, and the final octave coda found a voice that was more horizontal than the more usual verticality of most pianists.

I had no idea that we were to hear the Mendelssohn without the piano but Maximilian was waiting in the wings like an archangel ready to add his refined voice to that of the two sisters.

Zarzycki’s Mazurka is a virtuosistic piece that Fiona played with great style. Maximilian playing with the piano lid fully opened as he is a young man with a unique musical pedigree who knows how to drive, watching and listening with the same sensitivity as that of the two sisters.

Wagner’ s Metternich was played by Hina with searing intensity and ravishing beauty.

The centre of the programme though was the Schubert Fantasy in their commissioned transcription by Madeline Barrett. The beauty of the opening from Max gave the two sisters a magic bed on which to float Schubert’s yearning melody with whispered sensitivity as Schubert’s mellifluous outpouring passed from one to the other with simplicity and glowing beauty. Even the piano was allowed to add its voice to this most beautiful of melodies. Maximiliano adding the nobility of the bass as an anchor to the flights of poetic fantasy from above . The final fugue took wing with dynamic drive and clarity but it was only here that this transcription seemed to have neglected the harmonic implications, with all three giving voice to the subject but missing the very substance that is supporting them . This was a small price to pay for all the other beautiful things such as the imperious authority and flights of radiance in the Largo. The grace and charm of the Scherzo which they imbued with an inner energy that made the return of the opening in Maximilian’s hands seem even more like a celestial vision . But the stillness and magical atmosphere that the violins could captivate after the tumultuous climax of the fugue was one of those magic moments when the artists and audience are united in a spell of sublime recreation.

The Rózsa Sonata is an original work written in1933 before the composer found fame in Hollywood. It is a work full of dynamic drive and biting folkloristic rhythmic energy played by these two young ladies scaling this mountain with an Olympian strength. Hina then created an oasis of muffled sounds in the Lento assai ,where Fiona could enter with poignant beauty and absolute stillness before the savage dance rhythms of the Vivo e giocoso.

Now was time for a musical duel between these two sisters playing with unbridled passion and brilliance . The ‘Zigeunerweisen’ has long been a showpiece for violin and here in the arrangement by Michi Wiancko it was doubly so. Joined by Maximilian who provided the foil for these two sparing partners playing with red hot intensity and breathtaking daring.

The encore was of a piece written for them by John Corigliano ‘The Red Violin’, no place for Maximilian here as these two girls put on their dancing shoes and astonished us with their breathtaking dexterity and daring.

Violinists and sisters Hina & Fiona share a unique artistic bond that brings together their distinctly individual voices. Shaped by lifelong collaboration, the New York-born duo has been praised by BBC Music Magazine, which notes that “their playing in unison could almost fool you into thinking that you were listening to a single player”, in response to the release of their debut album with Pentatone, Dear to Us.

In 2026, Hina & Fiona gave the world premiere of John Corigliano’s The Red Violin: Suite for Two Violins and Orchestra with the Pacific Symphony under Alexander Shelley at Festival Napa Valley. Reimagined by Corigliano especially for Hina & Fiona, the work was praised by BroadwayWorld for their “breathtaking technical command and a telepathic musical connection,” adding that “fast, virtuosic passages dazzled with precision while the lyrical moments revealed exceptional maturity and emotional depth.”
Recent and upcoming performance highlights include Wigmore Hall, Rome Chamber Music Festival, Moritzburg Festival, North Shore Chamber Music Festival with the Avant Symphony Orchestra under Mina Zikri, and Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra with Keitaro Harada.

Endlessly supporting one another through their significant solo milestones and careers, Hina won first prize at the 2023 Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition, and Fiona made her New York Philharmonic debut at age 16 with Thomas Wilkins, performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.

Fiona Khuong- Huu
Having debuted with the NYPhil in David Geffen Hall at 16, Fiona has also performed as soloist at the Kulturpalast in Dresden with the Moritzburg Festival Orchestra, in Alice Tully Hall with the Juilliard Orchestra, the ProMusica chamber orchestra, and most recently made her Severance Hall debut in April 2026. She currently studies with Professor Ilya Kaler at the Cleveland Institute of Music and was previously a student of Itzhak Perlman in the Juilliard Pre-College Division.

Hina Khuong – Huu . Her most recent orchestral engagements include debuts of a range of repertoire from Beethoven to Korngold concertos with the  Binghamton Philharmonic, Atlantic Classical Orchestra, the Savannah Philharmonic, the Brevard Symphony, and the Greensboro Symphony, to name a few.  She performs on the 1722 Stradivari “Lord Wandsworth” violin, generously on loan from the Ryuji Ueno Foundation. A recent Economics graduate of Columbia University, she continues her studies at the Juilliard school with Midori Goto and Itzhak Perlman.