https://www.scmp.com/rss/513671/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Original musicals have become a key part of the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong’s programming. After Bug Symphony (2015) and Wild (2022), the orchestra premiered its third creation, Shark Symphony, at the Tsuen Wan Town Hall on April 20. Written by Leanne Nicholls, the founder and artistic director of CCOHK, Shark Symphony has a strong sustainability theme. Two businessmen, Ken and Michael (Perrin Pang and Michael Sharmon), have started an underwater restaurant called “The Deep”. Its selling... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3259995/shark-symphony-review-city-chamber-orchestra-hong-kongs-fun-family-friendly-musical-about?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3259995/shark-symphony-review-city-chamber-orchestra-hong-kongs-fun-family-friendly-musical-about?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 Apr 2024 09:15:24 +0000 Canadian director Robert Lepage entranced audiences in Hong Kong with his autobiographical 887 five years ago, a solo performance aided by his masterful use of toy-size props. For this year’s Hong Kong Arts Festival, he and his group, Ex Machina, brought something a bit different. Courville is loosely based on memories of his youth and told with life-size puppets inspired by the Japanese bunraku tradition. Set in 1975, it centres on 17-year-old Simon and his small world in Courville, a town... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3256165/japanese-puppetry-helps-tell-story-gay-teenagers-trauma-1970s-quebec-dazzling-robert-lepage?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3256165/japanese-puppetry-helps-tell-story-gay-teenagers-trauma-1970s-quebec-dazzling-robert-lepage?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 22 Mar 2024 09:15:15 +0000 Tao of Glass, co-commissioned by Hong Kong’s New Vision Arts Festival from composer Philip Glass and performer-director Phelim McDermott, is difficult to define. Part live drama, part concert and part puppet show, the work – which has had its delayed Hong Kong premiere four years after it was first performed in Manchester in the UK – also resembles a talk show in format. At its most basic level, Tao of Glass is about McDermott’s love of theatre and his obsession with Glass, the minimalist guru... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3239677/taoism-and-minimalism-meet-tao-glass-moving-work-about-one-mans-love-theatre-and-philip-glass-music?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3239677/taoism-and-minimalism-meet-tao-glass-moving-work-about-one-mans-love-theatre-and-philip-glass-music?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 30 Oct 2023 09:45:17 +0000 Covid-19 restrictions may be a thing of the past, but the pandemic still cast a shadow over the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s April 21-22 performances of Brahms’ majestic A German Requiem. The performances, the first by the Hong Kong Philharmonic in over a decade, required two choirs – the orchestra’s own and The Learners Chorus, founded in 1979 by former members of the Hong Kong University Students’ Union Choir. The combined chorus consisted of approximately 90 members, considerably smaller than it... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3218316/hong-kong-philharmonic-orchestra-and-choirs-german-requiem-expertly-guided-cornelius-meister?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3218316/hong-kong-philharmonic-orchestra-and-choirs-german-requiem-expertly-guided-cornelius-meister?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 25 Apr 2023 10:56:06 +0000 Jonathan Douglas was a man of many talents. Best-known as the voice behind RTHK’s classical music programmes for 30 years, Douglas was also a theatre director and accomplished actor. But his first love was music. In early 2022, months before he died at the age of 65 after a long battle with cancer, Douglas recorded 13 of his favourite piano pieces among those he composed over the years, with some dating from his twenties and thirties. Now these have been released on Spotify by his family as an... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3208576/perfect-gift-man-who-loved-music-spotify-release-album-late-composer-and-hong-kong-classical-music?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3208576/perfect-gift-man-who-loved-music-spotify-release-album-late-composer-and-hong-kong-classical-music?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 01 Feb 2023 08:15:10 +0000 The anticipation was palpable as Yunchan Lim, fresh from winning the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, stepped onto the stage at the University of Hong Kong’s Grand Hall on November 11. The question on everyone’s mind: just what does this 18-year-old wunderkind possess that moved jury chair Marin Alsop to tears when she conducted Lim and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto in the final round of the prestigious contest? The recital... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3199544/wunderkind-korean-pianist-yunchan-lim-dazzles-hong-kong-debut-matching-power-and-pyrotechnics-poise?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3199544/wunderkind-korean-pianist-yunchan-lim-dazzles-hong-kong-debut-matching-power-and-pyrotechnics-poise?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 14 Nov 2022 09:45:08 +0000 We all know how it feels. You are trying to log into your computer, you’ve forgotten the password, and you have to prove that you are you, and not a robot. Billed as the world’s first “artificial intelligence opera”, Chasing Waterfalls looks at our collective identity crisis during the digital age. It is a bold and original presentation that its German-Hong Kong creative team has adapted for Hong Kong’s New Vision Festival Arts Festival. In September, it premiered in Germany at the Semperoper... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3198814/worlds-first-artificial-intelligence-opera-review-chasing-waterfalls-blends-live-and-digital?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3198814/worlds-first-artificial-intelligence-opera-review-chasing-waterfalls-blends-live-and-digital?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 08 Nov 2022 09:45:13 +0000 This musical’s title could have been the description of its long and arduous journey to final production. But eventually, The Impossible Trial triumphed. It all began in 2014 when composer Leon Ko and lyricist Chris Shum wanted to write a musical about a greedy and immoral lawyer in China’s Guangdong province in the late 19th century. It previewed in 2019 under the name The Great Pretender and its debut was scheduled for 2020. Then, the pandemic intervened; even the first three shows of last... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3192969/hong-kong-musical-impossible-trial-has-its-issues-songs-are?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3192969/hong-kong-musical-impossible-trial-has-its-issues-songs-are?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Sep 2022 11:15:14 +0000