Discord at the Hong Kong Philharmonic: has orchestra dropped the baton?

An artist personnel issue in the city's flagship orchestra for the new concert season has become an unlikely spark igniting a raging fire.

On June 1, the South China Morning Post ran a report on the lack of local classical stars in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra's 2015-2016 concert season. Out of 32 weeks of music, only one local conductor is featured, plus a pop singer and a magician.

The vice-chairman of the orchestra's board, Y.S. Liu, remarked that the government had set the expectation for the orchestra to become world-class. The unintended slight was not lost on local art circles.

Within a week, a petition addressed to the government on the orchestra's commitment to local talent garnered more than 550 signatures.

"Who does the orchestra employ, who are its stakeholders, and how much does it reinvest back into our city?" the artists ask in the petition.

In the same week, the issue reached the international classical music circuit but with a more sinister spin to it. Musical America, one of the most influential classical music web-magazines, cited both the Post and the petition in a story that rose to second on its "Most Read" list.

The article, titled "Flap at the Hong Kong Phil May Threaten Funding", went so far as to associate the date of the petition with "the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, which is still widely commemorated in Hong Kong."