Russian ready to take up the baton
Vassily Sinaisky gave up tour with home-town orchestra to fill in for injured HK Phil conductor
Russian conductor Vassily Sinaisky wasn't deterred by mass protests in the city when he decided to turn down a tour with his home-town orchestra to stand in for the Hong Kong Philharmonic's injured maestro.
Sinaisky will conduct the Phil tonight and tomorrow night in place of music director Jaap van Zweden, who has withdrawn due to a shoulder injury.
To do so, the former music chief of the cream of Moscow orchestras - including the Bolshoi Theatre and Russian State Symphony - turned down an Asian tour with the St Petersburg Philharmonic.
"I was very well informed of the daily situation in Hong Kong when I accepted the invitation last week," the 67-year old conductor said.
Noting the difference between Hong Kong's "smoothly fighting" scuffles and the "dreadful Ukrainian situation", he said most of the action was "on the island side and doesn't affect the rehearsal and concert" at the Cultural Centre Concert Hall in Tsim Sha Tsui.
A Russian national who has lived in Amsterdam for 20 years, Sinaisky said he got information from the Russian and Dutch television services through which he got "very different opinions".
"Dutch TV shows the scene of umbrellas, sitting-in peacefully, and the Russian shows the fighting scenes. My view is somewhere in between," he laughed.