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Hong Kong Arts Festival

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Hong Kong Arts Festival
Hong Kong Arts Festival has been held annually since 1973. The 2020 edition is due to feature more than 120 performances by nearly 1,800 local and international artists. Read interviews and profiles of some of the leading performers, event previews and reviews.
Pianist Yunchan Lim with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields orchestra at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall during the Hong Kong Arts Festival on Saturday. Photo: HKAF
Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim, 22, wows the Hong Kong Arts Festival

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields put on a spirited performance with South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim and guest conductor Wilson Ng.

World of performing arts

Chinese opera troupe’s retelling of ancient love story ends with a ‘brilliant’ surprise

Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | No heroes, no villains: a finely shaded Eugene Onegin in Hong Kong

Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s CCO plays sumptuous Mozart at Hong Kong Arts Festival

The Hong Kong debut of Gardiner’s Constellation Choir and Orchestra was impressive in its attention to detail and colourful musicality.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Constellation Choir and Orchestra performed two Mozart works at the Hong Kong Arts Festival on March 6. This was the Hong Kong debut of Gardiner’s new ensemble, founded in 2024. Photo: Hong Kong Arts Festival
Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Stunning beauty and power in Hong Kong performance of Caravaggio

Roberto Bolle dazzled among a cast of seasoned and upcoming stars in this ballet about Caravaggio’s art and violent life.

On Our Radar

The Hong Kong Arts Festival is back. These are the shows to book first

Tradition meets tech as stages both real and virtual host dance, music and immersive magic.

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Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Chaotic, electrifying: Sebastian Kaiser’s The Drunkard is fiercely alive

Cross-cultural and gender-blind, Sebastian Kaiser’s stage adaptation of Liu Yichang’s 1962 novel stays true to its rebellious spirit.

Sze Wei in The Drunkard at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre’s Studio Theatre. The stage adaptation of Liu Yichang’s 1962 novel is directed by Sebastian Kaiser for the 2026 Hong Kong Arts Festival. Photo: Eric Hong
Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | She seduced some of the most powerful men. A ballet tries to tell her story

Despite some excellent dancing, Ballet Nacional de España’s La Bella Otero fails to do justice to the notorious Belle Époque star’s story.

Books and literature

War zones, jingles and litter picking – the HKILF’s literary legend visits

Weird and wonderful real-life tales of authors who have appeared at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, from Margaret Atwood to Salman Rushdie.

Performing arts in Hong Kong

‘Unconventional bodies’: inclusive dance team’s upcoming Hong Kong show

Unusual Symptoms’ experimental dance project Harmonia challenges audience biases about the human body.

Harmonia, performed by the inclusive dance theatre group Unusual Symptoms, stars performers with congenital limb differences, dwarfism and wheelchair needs – and challenges audience biases about the human body. Photo: Unusual Symptoms
Performing arts in Hong Kong

Hong Kong concert where audience can walk around and see musicians up close

Neither audience members nor performers will be confined to their seats at the concert from the inclusive music ensemble Paraorchestra.

Audience members get an up-close view of the UK’s Paraorchestra performing The Nature of Why at a previous concert. The orchestra will bring the immersive show to Hong Kong’s Kwai Tsing Theatre in late February 2026. Photo: No Limits/Dom Moore
Performing arts in Hong Kong

How a non-Chinese-speaking director reimagined major Hong Kong literary work

‘Naivety brews creativity’ for German director Sebastian Kaiser, who has adapted Liu Yichang’s The Drunkard for the Hong Kong Arts Festival.

Icons and Influencers

Q&A | High barre: a chat with dancer Roberto Bolle ahead of Caravaggio in Hong Kong

Bolle discusses how dance became his life as he prepares to bring Caravaggio to the Hong Kong Arts Festival in March.

Performing arts in Hong Kong

What to expect at Hong Kong Arts Festival 2026, from Mozart to Caravaggio

Festival highlights include a mixed-reality Ryuichi Sakamoto show, a concert led by John Eliot Gardiner and a ballet starring Roberto Bolle.

The 54th Hong Kong Arts Festival will open with Ballet Nacional de España’s La Bella Otero, a retelling of 19th-century Spanish artist Carolina Otero’s life story. Photo: HKAF
Art

Opinion | Hong Kong Arts Development Awards too provincial and inward-looking

An excellent ceremony aside, the HKADA don’t do enough to promote winners outside Hong Kong or help them network, John Batten says.

Dony Cheng Hung speaks after winning the 19th Hong Kong Arts Development Award for young artist (visual arts), at Hong Kong City Hall, on June 10, 2025. Photo: Hong Kong Arts Development Council
Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Visually stunning Bizet’s Carmen in Hong Kong recreates original staging

The Hong Kong Arts Festival’s presentation of the famous opera gives a fascinating sense of what audiences experienced 150 years ago.

Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Rudolf Nureyev gala tribute in Hong Kong full of high points

Mariinsky Ballet’s Maria Khoreva shows why she is making waves, hometown hero Lam Chun-wing earns acclaim in tribute to a legend of dance.

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Performing arts in Hong Kong

Beethoven meets space battles in ‘first manga opera’, coming to Hong Kong

Conductor Laurence Equilbey and her Insula Orchestra will perform Beethoven Wars: A Battle for Peace at the Hong Kong Arts Festival in March.

A scene from Beethoven Wars: A Battle for Peace. Described as the first “manga opera”, it will be performed by the Insula Orchestra and Accentus chamber choir from March 26-28, 2025 as part of the 53rd Hong Kong Arts Festival. Photo: HKAF
Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Refined Mozart, inspired Bach from Andras Schiff and his ensemble

Schiff and the Cappella Andrea Barca’s playing of Mozart exuded grace and refinement, and they were on point in Bach’s keyboard concertos.

Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Czech National Ballet’s La Sylphide marked by fast, crisp footwork

Hong Kong Arts Festival programme was performed beautifully by the Czech National Ballet. It’s just a pity there was no live music.

Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Buoyant Beethoven from Kolesnikov and Hong Kong Sinfonietta

Soloist finds musical insights in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 4, while orchestra shows its growth in Schumann’s ‘Rhenish’ Symphony.

Pavel Kolesnikov performs Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 4 with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta at Hong Kong City Hall on February 22, 2025. The concert was part of the 53rd Hong Kong Arts Festival. Photo: HK Sinfonietta
Hong Kong economy

Exclusive | Russian art and Bolshoi in Hong Kong? Envoy says top museums ‘ready to share’

Envoy Anatoly Kargapolov says Moscow hopes to strengthen collaboration with Hong Kong in the arts, tourism and education.

An envoy says Russian museums are considering sharing works with top Hong Kong institutions such as M+. Photo: Eugene Lee
Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Japanese drummer steals the show in concert with Hong Kong Sinfonietta

Senri Kawaguchi’s inspired drumming brings alive Hong Kong composer Ng Cheuk-yin’s Fly LIVE! and new work An Array of Stars in a fusion concert with Hong Kong orchestra.

Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Shanghai Ballet’s A Sigh of Love looked great but never came to life

A Sigh of Love, performed by Shanghai Ballet at Hong Kong Arts Festival 2024, had impressive sets, costumes and dancing, but the story was too thin and the score incoherent.

Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Robert Lepage uses puppets to tell story of teenage trauma in 1970s Quebec

Courville, Canadian Robert Lepage’s play centred on an LGBTQ teenager in 1970s Quebec, and performed as part of the 2024 Hong Kong Arts Festival, featured dazzling Japanese bunraku puppetry.

Olivier Normand, the only actor in Robert Lepage’s Courville, with the puppet of protagonist Simon’s alcoholic uncle. The play made deft use ofJapanese-style bunraku puppetry to tell an intense story of teenage trauma in 1970s Quebec. Photo: courtesy of Hong Kong Arts Festival
Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Feast of string playing from Concerto Italiano, Festival Strings Lucerne

Period instrument ensemble Concerto Italiano showed their mastery of baroque in a set of Vivaldi concertos; the Lucerne Festival Strings, performing with solo violinist Akiko Suwanai, were good in parts.

The early music ensemble Concerto Italiano and founder-conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini receive the applause of the audience at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall during their performance of music by Vivaldi for the 2024 Hong Kong Arts Festival. The Lucerne Festival Strings also performed there. Photo: HKAF
Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Heavy metal meets orchestral sound in Bright & Black, with mixed results

Hong Kong Arts Festival show with a rock concert vibe features pieces orchestral in scope composed by Nordic metalheads and performed by multinational Baltic Sea Philharmonic.

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Performing arts in Hong Kong

Review | Le Corsaire by La Scala ballet: well danced in places, but uneven

La Scala Theatre Ballet’s Hong Kong Arts Festival performance of Le Corsaire had its moments, not least a star turn by Nicoletta Manni as Medora, but was marred by odd story choices and some untidy dancing.

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