Beethoven celebration is focus of HK Phil’s new season; Lang Lang, Renée Fleming to perform

Chinese pianist and Hong Kong’s Rachel Cheung among the soloists who will play Beethoven concertos, part of programming to mark anniversary of his birth in 1770

A Shostakovich symphony, a Rachmaninov concerto, works by Hong Kong composers and the return of Elim Chan to conduct are also among the highlights

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Jaap van Zweden conducts the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. An Asian tour is lined up for next season, and the music director says: “It’s time for us to … show the world how fantastic this orchestra is”. Photo: Dieter Nagl/Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra

Published: 7:42pm, 6 May 2019Updated: 10:43pm, 7 May 2019

The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra under music director Jaap van Zweden will perform complete cycles of Beethoven’s symphonies and concertos next season and the season after that to mark the 250th anniversary of the German composer’s birth.

Soloists Lang Lang, Rudolf Buchbinder, Rachel Cheung Wai-ching, Vikingur Olafsson and Nobuyuki Tsujii will accompany the orchestra in Beethoven’s five piano concertos.

“The diversity of programming is a little bit less in the coming season. That’s because the central [focus] of the season is, of course, Beethoven and I think that’s very important that we celebrate, in my opinion, one of the greatest three or four composers,” van Zweden said.

“Not every orchestra is doing that, but I think for the Hong Kong Phil and for the [local] audience it is very important to celebrate [Beethoven’s music] over two seasons.”

Hong Kong pianist Rachel Cheung performs at the launch of the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s 2019/2020 season. She will perform Beethoven with the orchestra. Photo: Ka Lam/HK Phil

Launching a star-studded season, Seong-Jin Cho, winner of the 2015 Chopin Piano Competition, will play Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in the orchestra’s opening concert in September.