Piano Superstar Yuja Wang and Maestro Jaap van Zweden open the
HK Phil 2017/18 Season with three Stunning Programmes

24-07-2017

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[24 July 2017, Hong Kong] The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) kicks off its 2017/18 Season with its Music Director Jaap van Zweden teaming up with Yuja Wang who returns to perform Tchaikovsky’s popular First Piano Concerto (1 & 2 September 2017), and the poetic Piano Concerto no. 2 by Beethoven (8 & 9 September 2017). Yuja Wang will also share the stage with three of the HK Phil’s Principals – Jing Wang, Andrew Ling and Richard Bamping in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor and Brahms’s Piano Quartet no. 1 in G minor (one performance only, 6 September 2017). Single tickets for all three programmes are now available at URBTIX and are selling fast.

Maestro Jaap van Zweden has become a major musical presence on three continents over the last decade. Under his baton, the HK Phil will perform Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (1 & 2 September 2017), with its primal rhythms and monumental power, as well as Mahler’s Fifth Symphony (8 & 9 September 2017), with its themes of death, love and the innocence of nature.

“Hers is a nonchalant, brilliant keyboard virtuosity that would have made… even the fabled Horowitz jealous”
--- Los Angeles Times

Musical America’s Artist of the Year 2017, Yuja Wang has secured a place of distinction among the world’s finest performers due to her rare blend of technical refinement, musical insight and emotional sensitivity. ‘Charismatic’, ‘breathtaking’, ‘flawless’ and ‘heartfelt’ are just some of the superlatives used frequently by critics worldwide. Yuja’s love for fashion has also contributed to the popular appeal of an artist who is armed with the ability to challenge convention and win fresh converts to classical music.

Season Opening: Jaap and Yuja (1 & 2 Sep)
Yuja teams up with Maestro van Zweden in Tchaikovsky’s spectacular, show-stopping Piano Concerto no. 1. This evening of dazzling Russian masterpieces reaches its climax with Stravinsky’s stunning score to The Rite of Spring. Famously setting the world of music and ballet alight at the dawn of the 20th century, this masterpiece still excites and stimulates audiences today with its amazing raw and primal rhythms.

Yuja & Friends: A Chamber Night (6 Sep)
Yuja enjoys an intimate encounter with three HK Phil Principals in a programme of emotionally-charged and profoundly beautiful chamber music. Tchaikovsky dedicated his moving Piano Trio to his former teacher, Nikolai Rubinstein, subtitling it 'In Memory of a Great Artist', while Brahms wrote his profound Piano Quartet in G minor in memory of Robert Schumann whose widow, Clara, performed in its premiere.

Yuja’s Beethoven and Mahler 5 (8 & 9 Sep)
Great music full of emotional peaks and troughs! Yuja will guide us through Beethoven’s graceful and poetic Second Piano Concerto, while Jaap van Zweden presents Mahler’s stupendous Fifth Symphony, the first time he has conducted this major score in Hong Kong. Movie-buffs know this symphony through its ravishing Adagietto used in Visconti’s Death in Venice, but the symphony embraces the whole gamut of human experience.

Season Opening: Jaap & Yuja; Yuja & Friends: A Chamber Night; and Yuja’s Beethoven & Mahler 5 areaccredited events celebrating the 20thAnniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

QBE is the Title Sponsor of the Opening Night Concert.
9 September performance is sponsored by Sunwah Kingsway.

Season Opening: Jaap & Yuja will be held on 1 & 2 September 2017 (Fri & Sat), 8PM, in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall.Tickets priced: HK$880, $680, $480, $380 are now available at URBTIX. For enquiries, please call +852 2721 2332 or visit www.hkphil.org.

Yuja & Friends: A Chamber Night will be held on 6 September 2017 (Wed), 8PM, in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall.Tickets priced: HK$680, $480, $380, $280 are now available at URBTIX. For enquiries, please call +852 2721 2332 or visit www.hkphil.org.

Yuja’s Beethoven and Mahler 5 will be held on 8 & 9 September 2017 (Fri & Sat), 8PM, in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall.Tickets priced: HK$880, $680, $480, $380 are now available at URBTIX. For enquiries, please call +852 2721 2332 or visit www.hkphil.org.

Artists
Jaap van Zweden, conductor [full biography]
Over the last decade, conductor Jaap van Zweden has become an international presence on three continents. The 17/18 season marks a major milestone as he completes his ten-year tenure as Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and simultaneously is Music Director Designate in New York, anticipating his inaugural season (2018/19) as the 26th Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. He continues as Music Director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, a post he has held since 2012. Born in Amsterdam, Jaap van Zweden was the youngest ever Concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He began his conducting career in 1995 and in 2012 was named Musical America's Conductor of the Year.

Yuja Wang, piano [full biography]
Named as Musical America’s Artist of the Year 2017, Yuja Wang was born into a musical family in Beijing. After childhood piano studies in China, she received advanced training in Canada and at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music under Gary Graffman. Her international breakthrough came in 2007 when she replaced Martha Argerich as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Two years later she signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon and has since established her place among the world’s leading artists with a succession of critically acclaimed performances and recordings.

Jing Wang, violin [full biography]
Jing Wang studied at The Juilliard School and completed post-graduate studies at the Shepherd School of Music (Rice University). He was Concertmaster for the Dallas Opera for three years before taking up his appointment as Concertmaster with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2013. He plays a 1760 G.B. Guadagnini violin, a loan arranged by the YS Liu Foundation.

Andrew Ling, viola[full biography]
A native of Hong Kong, Andrew Ling is currently the Principal Violist of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. He has performed solo performances with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra to critical acclaim. Ling completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at the Indiana University, and has studied at Rice University in Houston. He studied with Henryk Kowalski, Ik-Hwan Bae, Alan de Veritch and Cho-Liang Lin.

Richard Bamping, cello [full biography]
Richard Bamping has been the Principal Cellist of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra since 1993. He has performed with many of the finest musicians of recent history – Yehudi Menuhin, Leonidas Kavakos, Mstislav Rostropovich, Carlo Maria Guilini, Valery Gergiev, Leonard Bernstein, Lorin Maazel, Sir Colin Davis and Claudio Abbado.

YUJA! SERIES: SEASON OPENING: JAAP & YUJA
1 & 2 | 9 | 2017
FRI & SAT 8PM
Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall
HK$880 $680 $480 $380

Artists

Click the thumbnails to download press photos

Programme

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YUJA! SERIES: YUJA & FRIENDS: A CHAMBER NIGHT
6 | 9 | 2017
WED 8PM
Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall
HK$680 $480 $380 $280

Artists

Click the thumbnails to download press photos

Yuja Wang Photo Credit: Ian Douglas	Jing Wang Photo Credit: HK Phil

Programme

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YUJA! SERIES: YUJA’S BEETHOVEN & MAHLER 5
8 & 9 | 9 | 2017
FRI & SAT 8PM
Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall
HK$880 $680 $480 $380

Artists

Click the thumbnails to download press photos

Jaap van Zweden Photo Credit: Cheung Chi Wai/HK Phil	Yuja Wang Photo Credit: Kirk Edwards	The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra Photo Credit: Keith Hiro/HK Phil

Programme

Tickets for the above programmes are available at URBTIX from 15 July
All programmes are for ages 6 and above

Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra
Music Director: Jaap van Zweden
Principal Guest Conductor: Yu Long

The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) is recognised as Asia’s foremost classical orchestra. The orchestra presents more than 150 concerts over a 44-week season and attracts more than 200,000 music lovers annually.

Jaap van Zweden, one of today’s most sought-after conductors, has been the orchestra’s Music Director since the 2012/13 concert season, a position he will continue to hold until at least 2022. In addition, Maestro van Zweden will also be the next Music Director of the New York Philharmonic starting with the 2018/19 season.

Yu Long was appointed Principal Guest Conductor with the HK Phil for a three-year period commencing with the 2015/16 season.

Under Maestro van Zweden, the HK Phil is undertaking a variety of initiatives including a four-year project to perform and record the complete Ring of the Nibelung (Richard Wagner). The orchestra is in the third of this four-year journey, performing one opera annually in concert. The performances being recorded live for the Naxos label are winning rave reviews internationally; and mark the first performances by a Hong Kong or mainland Chinese orchestra of the entire Ring cycle.

Also under van Zweden, the orchestra has toured to Taiwan, Europe and Mainland China. The orchestra just completed an ambitious five-city tour to Seoul, Osaka, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney in April and May 2017 in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the HKSAR.

Conductors and soloists who have recently performed with the orchestra include Yo-Yo Ma, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Ning Feng, Matthias Goerne, Lang Lang, Yu Long, Yundi Li, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Yuja Wang and the late Lorin Maazel.

The HK Phil promotes the work of Hong Kong and Chinese composers through an active commissioning programme, and has released recordings featuring Tan Dun and Bright Sheng, each conducting their own compositions, on the Naxos label. Its acclaimed community engagement programme brings music to tens of thousands of children annually. A recording was issued free to schoolchildren throughout Hong Kong of Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Leopold Mozart’s Toy Symphony.

The Swire Group has been the Principal Patron of the HK Phil since 2006. Through this sponsorship, which is the largest in the orchestra’s history, Swire also endeavours to promote artistic excellence, foster access to classical music and stimulate cultural participation in Hong Kong, and to enhance Hong Kong’s reputation as one of the great cities of the world.

Thanks to a significant subsidy from the Hong Kong Government and long-term funding from Principal Patron Swire, the Hong Kong Jockey Club and other supporters, the HK Phil now boasts a full-time annual schedule of classical music concerts, pops concerts, an extensive education programme, and collaborations for staged opera with Opera Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Arts Festival.

The orchestra was originally called the Sino-British Orchestra. It was renamed as the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in 1957 and became fully professional in 1974.

SWIRE is the Principal Patron of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra is a Venue Partner of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre.