Tan Dun Kicked off the HK Phil’s 42nd Season with his Highly Acclaimed Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women

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[10 September 2015, Hong Kong] The iconic Tan Dun created very successful Season Opening Concerts of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) by conducting his highly acclaimed Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women, on 4 & 5 September in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall.
 

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001  Jack So, Chairman of the Board of Governors of The Hong Kong Philharmonic Society

002  Carrie Lam, Chief Secretary for Administration, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

003  John Slosar, Chairman of Swire Pacific Limited

004  From  left: John Slosar, Michael MacLeod (Chief Executive of The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra), Carrie Lam, Jack So, Lin Jingzhen (Deputy Chief Executive, Bank of China (Hong Kong)

005  From left: John Slosar, Michael MacLeod, Carrie Lam, Jack So, Lin Jingzhen

006  The HK Phil and Xinru Zhang performing Tan Dun’s Symphonic Poem on Three Notes

007  Young violinist Zeyu Victor Li performed Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, a much-loved work amongst concert-goers

008  The much anticipated programme of the night – Tan Dun conducting his highly acclaimed Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women, featuring Elizabeth Hainen, solo harpist of The Philadelphia Orchestra

009  The season opening concerts of the HK Phil were warmly greeted by the audiences

Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra
Music Director: Jaap van Zweden

The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) has recently returned from an extremely successful five-country, seven-city tour of Europe, with concerts in London, Vienna, Zurich, Eindhoven, Birmingham, Berlin and Amsterdam. Most concerts were sold out, there were standing ovations, and the reviews were universally positive. The concert in Vienna’s Musikverein was filmed for broadcast on TV. With a history stretching back to 1895, when it was formed as the Sino-British Orchestra, the HK Phil was re-named in 1957 and became fully professional in 1974.

Thanks to 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.

Conductors and soloists who have recently performed with the orchestra include Vladimir Ashkenazy, Ning Feng, Matthias Goerne, Lang Lang, Yu Long, Yundi Li, the late Lorin Maazel, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Yuja Wang and Edo de Waart, the HK Phil’s previous Music Director.

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 ten 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.

This season is Jaap van Zweden’s fourth as Music Director of the HK Phil. With him, the orchestra is undertaking major expansion and new projects, including the first-ever performances by a Hong Kong or mainland Chinese orchestra of Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung. The four operas are being performed, one a year, in concert and recorded live for the Naxos label.

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.

The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra is financially supported by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
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

 

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