This year saw several international names and acts landing in town: the New York City Ballet and Kevin Spacey - courtesy of the Hong Kong Arts Festival - the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as contemporary artists Damien Hirst, Zeng Fanzhi and Yang Fudong. But hype aside, how was the art itself?
Classical music
Of the performances from this year's classical music listings that could have happily accompanied one to a desert island, two were particularly memorable: Christian Tetzlaff's masterly intellectual grasp and technical delivery of J.S. Bach's sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin in May; and cellist Steven Isserlis' intensely moving October recital of works by Beethoven, Britten, Saint-Saens and Shostakovich. In both cases, one felt in the presence of the sum of a lifetime's sculpting of perfection.
Many orchestral concerts promised a knock-out on paper and while some delivered, the majority left a few skittles standing, often in the form of the concerto item. Both sides of the coin applied to conductor Lawrence Renes' two appearances with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in early September: the first paired some wonderfully crafted Mozart (Symphony No41) and terrific Mahler (The Song of the Earth); a week later, Simon Trpceski's vacuous reading of Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto sullied Renes' refreshing account of the same composer's Symphony No2.
With only three more programmes to go, Edo de Waart's tenure as artistic director and chief conductor of the Philharmonic has been petering out, matched by a wane in the impact of his interpretations. Kudos to those conductors who both put in the work and pull out the rabbit, especially those with touring orchestras who don't treat their appearance in the city as a bus-stop quickie.
Daniel Harding's all-Mahler programme with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in June springs to mind, particularly for his splendid account of the Symphony No4. Masaki Suzuki similarly justified his fine reputation in February's Hong Kong Arts Festival programme of cantatas by J.S. Bach, directing the meticulous singers and instrumentalists of his Bach Collegium Japan.