Milestones on HK Phil’s journey to 2019 Orchestra of the Year – playing with Itzhak Perlman, Swire Group’s patronage, Jaap van Zweden taking over the baton

Fully professional since 1974, the HK Phil recorded its first album in 1982; notable soloists in its early years included Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stern

Music directors David Atherton and Edo de Waart helped develop the orchestra, before van Zweden took over in 2012 and led it to this year’s accolade

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Lim Kek Tjiang, first music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, conducts the orchestra at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall in 1974, the year the ensemble became fully professional. Photo: SCMP

Published: 11:45am, 17 Oct 2019Updated: 11:45am, 17 Oct 2019

On Thursday the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra was named 2019 Orchestra of the Year in the annual Gramophone Classical Music Awards.

The award “celebrates ensembles that have made significant recorded contributions in the past year”, according to the UK-based magazine. In the case of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, it was its milestone recordings of Wagner’s The Ring Cycle – made at concert performances between 2015 and 2018 and released as a 14-disc set by the Naxos label last year – that saw it voted the first Asian winner of the Gramophone award.

These are some of the other milestones in the orchestra’s history:

1957 The Sino-British Orchestra is renamed Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

The then amateur Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra at a concert in 1959. Photo: Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra)

1974 The Hong Kong Philharmonic becomes a fully professional ensemble; Lim Kek Tjiang becomes the orchestra’s first music director.

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