Film a new way to appreciate classical music, Hong Kong Sinfonietta discovers – its concert films will screen at city’s Life Is Art festival
- When performance venues closed in the coronavirus pandemic, the Hong Kong orchestra made its first venture into producing concert films – and learned a lot
- With the Back on Stage films showing in this month’s Life is Art festival, CEO Margaret Yang reflects on their unexpected success in a challenging year
The Hong Kong Sinfonietta is presenting Back on Stage, a three-part concert film series, as a part of the Life is Art film festival in Hong Kong cinemas in September.
Recorded in 2020, initially when Hong Kong concerts halls were closed to audiences, the films show how the orchestra responded to the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. The month-long festival is a collaboration between the orchestra and Movie Movie cinemas, part of the Broadway cinema chain.
In Back on Stage I – filmed in June 2020 – the orchestra played to an auditorium full of dolls of McDull, an anthropomorphic cartoon piglet created by Hong Kong artists Alice Mak and Brian Tse. The artists are long-term creative partners of the Sinfonietta. It was the first time the orchestra’s players had performed together since January 2020.
Margaret Yang, chief executive of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, says the orchestra did not set out to make three concert films, but had produced two more films after receiving positive audience feedback for Back on Stage I.
The second film in the series, Back on Stage II (Quarantined!), offers an intimate picture of musicians’ efforts to keep working despite travel restrictions and quarantine requirements. As well as a concert, the film features the journeys of principal guest conductor Christoph Poppen and pianist Alexander Krichel from Germany and their 14-day hotel quarantine upon arrival in Hong Kong.