Review | Virtuoso chamber music playing by HK Phil principals benefits from pitch-perfect acoustics of HKUST’s new Shaw Auditorium
- Dutch conductor Peter Biloen drew top-notch playing from Hong Kong Philharmonic principals in an adventurous programme of chamber music
- The acoustics in HKUST’s Shaw Auditorium picked up every detail of works including the world premiere of resident composer Ilari Kaila’s The Underwater Folk
Regular concertgoers are used to certain programming conventions, such as an overture, concerto and symphony played in that order.
But for those who headed to HKUST’s Shaw Auditorium on Sunday September 25 for a particularly adventurous line-up of music, the opening concert of this year’s Cosmopolis Festival, at the university campus in Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, rewarded them in spades.
There were top-notch performances by Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra musicians, an Asian premiere, a world premiere, and works by Honegger and Wagner, all directed with dexterity by Dutch conductor Peter Biloen.
The demands that this heavy dose of the unfamiliar placed on listeners paled in comparison to the virtuosic challenges that confronted Biloen and the HK Phil musicians.
New York-born Augusta Read Thomas’ Dance Mobile, which received its first performance in Asia, is a fabulously whimsical composition consisting of three skittish dances that bounce with rhythmic spontaneity.