Yip Wing-sie, music director of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, recalls her breathtaking experience as the only Hongkonger to conduct at the prestigious Golden Hall in Vienna.
The concert hall is home to the more than 160-year-old Vienna Philharmonic - which on Sunday performed to a sold-out audience in Hong Kong, on its sixth visit to the city. The Leisure and Cultural Services Department also relayed the live recording for free to about 2,000 members of the public who gathered to watch on three screens along the Cultural Centre piazza.
Under the Tsim Sha Tsui night sky, Yip shared with the piazza audience her experience conducting on the same podium as Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan. Von Karajan, generally considered one of the greatest conductors, also conducted the Vienna Philharmonic's first concert in Hong Kong, in 1959.
It was the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, featuring pianist Li Yundi, that Yip conducted in Vienna, in December 2001. The Golden Hall was adorned with flowers, gilded frames, majestic crimson seats and dazzling chandeliers. She recalled the first moment of stepping onto the conducting podium during rehearsal.
'I stepped onto the podium, and turned around to look at the audience stands, and I thought: Wow, this is it,' Yip said. 'So many great masters have stood here.'
Yip said the Golden Hall, shaped like a shoebox, allowed music to project to the farthest reaches of the hall. 'Even the tiniest pin of a percussion instrument at the back of the stage can be heard.' Yip recalled that when the Chinese string instrument the pipa was played in the concert, there was no need for sound projectors to turn up the volume, as they would in typical concert halls.
