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Classical musici

Home to two renowned orchestras, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, and scores of other ensembles and players, as well as a magnet for many of the world’s leading performers, Hong Kong has one of the liveliest classical music scenes in Asia. Read previews and reviews of the biggest classical music events in Hong Kong, interviews with big players and tastemakers, profiles and news.

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  • Metalhead composers writing music of orchestral scope is not as strange as it might sound, and Black Sea Philharmonic quickly established a consistent mood
  • The tracks all came from recent album Bright & Black, and moves are afoot to release a video game based on it. That might give this music its rightful home
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An Apple Music Classical ambassador, Son Yeol-sum has teamed with Bulgarian-born violinist Svetlin Roussev on an album, Love Music. Son talks about bridging the gap between classical music and today’s audiences.

From 1842 to 1997, the Vienna Philharmonic was an all-male ensemble. Now it has 24 female musicians and is catching up with some of the world’s other leading orchestras.

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Garden of Repose at the West Kowloon Cultural District, a multimedia choral concert produced by the Hong Kong Arts Festival, includes works by Brahms, Arvo Pärt, Poulenc and Antonia Lotti.

Performed at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Van Gogh in Me is a multimedia display of music and visual art by the Netherlands Chamber Choir using works by Debussy, Gustav Mahler, Saint-Saëns and more.

Pianist Minsoo Sohn, teacher of South Korean prodigy Yunchan Lim, is appearing in the 2024 Hong Kong Arts Festival. He talks to the Post about South Korea’s music scene and how he sees performing.

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Milan’s Teatro alla Scala recently hosted the Orchestra of the Sea, playing violins, violas and cellos made by maximum security prisoners using wood salvaged from boats used to smuggle African migrants.

Seiji Ozawa led the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 29 years and received multiple accolades across his career, including an honorary doctorate from Harvard.

Jamie Dornan is best known for his racy role as Christian Grey in the Fifty Shades trilogy, but who is his real-life partner, British actress Amelia Warner?

Teenage British phenomenon who will perform two of her own works and conduct another in Hong Kong talks about shedding her ‘wonderkid’ mantle and the inspiration she gets from living in Vienna.

Performers who tackle Schubert’s piano sonatas need to understand how to bring out the layering of the composer’s musical ideas. Paul Lewis did that in spades in his concluding recitals in Hong Kong.

Despite the winter chill, Chinese gives 45-minute open-air performance at Hong Kong theme park, featuring arrangements of songs from Disney films such as Let It Go, from Frozen, and It’s A Small World.

As Jaap van Zweden, music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, prepares to hand over the baton, we look at candidates to succeed him.

The app’s launch is likely to bolster Apple’s major digital services business in China, which remains the US tech giant’s largest market in terms of App Store-related revenue.

Wilson Ng, former associate conductor of the Seoul Philharmonic, will bring his current orchestra, the Hankyung Arte Philharmonic, from South Korea to the Hong Kong Arts Festival in March.

Chilean-Italian conductor Paolo Bortolameolli talks about coming to Hong Kong to conduct Latin American-themed New Year concerts with the HK Phil and his journey to achieve his life goal.

Amid flurry of performances in China, Russia looks to be seen in a positive light in the face of Western condemnation over the Ukraine invasion: analysts.

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Hong Kong Sinfonietta music director and conductor Christoph Poppen explains how a concert by famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin and his pianist sister Hephzibah opened eyes to the power of music

In Musicus Soloists Hong Kong’s evening of Nordic music, violinist Angela Chan’s solo in Arvo Pärt’s Fratres stands out, while their playing of Grieg’s Piano Concerto with Louis Lortie is eye-opening.

A conference in Shenzhen about Arnold Schoenberg saw the Chinese premiere of Tod Machover’s opera about the 20th century Austrian Jewish composer who pioneered atonal music and his exile in America.

A performance of nervous intensity from the Hong Kong Sinfonietta of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 is accompanied by artist’s film inspired by the work and by Soviet composer’s career.

Mainland China’s commerce hub is adding a new dimension to its efforts to develop its appeal as an international tourist destination – organising world-class artistic performances to attract opera lovers and musical aficionados.

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Readers discuss the call for targeted and culturally sensitive public programmes, timely attention on the problem of “psychiatrisation”, the lucky audience at Yo-Yo Ma’s concert, and ways to speed up the construction of MTR platform screen doors.

Celebrated soloist’s focused, warm and engaging tone, and communication with Hong Kong orchestra’s players, make for a memorable performance of Dvorak concerto. ‘Great listening’, indeed, as Ma said.

The vinyl revival shows no sign of abating, but do LPs really sound better than CDs? Only if they come from the original analogue tapes, says the Grammy-winning mastering engineer

Mandy Harvey lost her hearing at 19 but later wowed Simon Cowell with her music on America’s Got Talent. The singer talks to the Post ahead of her performance with Hong Kong’s largest inclusive orchestra.

50 years after Philadelphia Orchestra’s ice-breaking tour of China, players are back for more concerts, as American Ballet Theatre mounts a tour and a Chinese orchestra readies to perform in New York.

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Hong Kong-born cellist Trey Lee had been struggling with a movement in Robert Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style. Seeing a famous 17th-century vanitas painting suddenly made everything clear.

Ricky Hu Songwei, Hong Kong Ballet’s award-winning choreographer-in-residence, talks to the Post about studying in in China and New York and finding his artistic voice after switching to choreography.