1 April 2009
Hong Kong Sinfonietta 2009/2010 Season
Music that Moves
Hong Kong Sinfonietta announces its new season “Music that Moves”. With the belief that live orchestral music is beautiful and beautiful music can touch, titillate, tickle and move, Music Director Yip Wing-sie has designed a series of exciting programmes this season:
Moving Music – the great Beethoven symphonies
“This season we have prepared for our audience many masterpieces that have stood the test of time and have continued to move people deeply,” said Yip. “There are the complete symphonies by Beethoven, a mover and shaker in music who took us from the Classical to the Romantic era.”
Yip continued: “we are delighted to be ending the Beethoven cycle with Opera Hong Kong, in Beethoven's great Choral Symphony. Earlier in the season we will also play Verdi's dramatic Requiem in our first concert collaboration with Opera Hong Kong. I think this is the greatest requiem ever written and it has pulled many heartstrings over the years.”
Music Moves – Star artists and masterpieces
Throughout the season, Hong Kong Sinfonietta also celebrates several notable anniversaries of Handel (250 years since his death), Haydn (200 years since his death) and Mendelssohn (200th anniversary of his birthday). The orchestra will take audience through different moods and emotions in concerts featuring such distinguished soloists as violinists David Garrett and Pinchas Zukerman; cellists Han-Na Chang and Tatjana Vassilieva; pianists Michel Dalberto, Howard Shelley, Noriko Ogawa and Freddy Kempf; and groundbreaking composers in the 20th and 21st centuries from Gershwin to Arvo Pärt, Toru Takemitsu, Chen Qi-gang, Julian Yu, Tan Dun and Hong Kong's very own George Lam.
On the Move – Concerts in Macao, Tokyo and Italy
On tour, Hong Kong Sinfonietta has been invited to perform in Macao with McDull during the Easter holidays, bringing to the Macao audience the witty and creative 2007 production of “Carnival of the Animals”. In May, the orchestra will return to La Folle Journée in Tokyo, where it will give five concerts under the Festival theme of “Bach and Europe”. All concerts in Macao and Japan are already sold-out!
In June, the orchestra makes its Italian début at festivals in Brescia, Bergamo and Vicenza, featuring pianist Colleen Lee Ka-ling in Ravel's Concerto in G.
Come Closer, Be Moved
Believing that good music can inspire people of any age, Hong Kong Sinfonietta is test-driving Classical Music for Babies concert, where new Artist Associate Jason Lai conducts and presents a concert for infants and toddlers. The orchestra is also introducing a new series Decoding Classical Music to demystify why and how music moves; this season Beethoven and Haydn will be decoded.
Other special concerts that are suitable for everyone include concerts from the series of CLP Light Classics, Short-cut to Classical Music, Know Your Classical Music, HKS for Kids and HKS McDull Music Project, and a fun-filled Disney concert in 2010.
Artist Associate 2009/2010
Hong Kong Sinfonietta first launched the Artist Associate scheme in the 2006/2007 season, with the aim to provide a platform for intensive collaboration with one or more artists during the season. While the Artist Associate works closely with the orchestra and the Music Director, new ideas are explored to expand the horizon of classical music.
The orchestra welcomes new Artist Associate Jason Lai, who will conduct the Hong Kong Sinfonietta in several concerts and participate in some of the orchestra's new educational initiatives this season. A cellist, pianist and composer by training, Lai was Assistant Conductor to the BBC Philharmonic from 2002 to 2005 as the winner of the BBC Young Conductors Workshop. Today, apart from conducting in Europe and Asia, he is also a broadcaster for the BBC and a keen educator.
Hong Kong Sinfonietta 2009/2010 Season
Concert List
3 & 4.4.2009: Short-cut to Classical Music: Orchestra Behind the Scenes
10 & 11.4.2009: HKS in Macao: Hong Kong Sinfonietta x McDull Concert
18.4.2009: Great Violin Concertos: David Garrett Plays Bruch
19.4.2009: David Garrett ENCORE
26.4.2009: Sunday Baroque
3–5.5.2009: HKS in Japan: La Folle Journée
15.5.2009: Le French May: Michel Dalberto & the Hong Kong Sinfonietta
22.5.2009: A Gala Evening with Pinchas Zukerman
23.5.2009: Le French May: Michel Dalberto Piano Recital
12 & 13.6.2009: HKS in Italy: Festival Pianistico Internazionale Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
14.6.2009: HKS in Italy: Settimane Musicali al Teatro Olimpico
21.6.2009: Verdi's Messa da Requiem
10.7.2009: Howard Shelley & the Hong Kong Sinfonietta
17–19.7.2009: Know Your Classical Music: Favourite Orchestral Tunes 2
30.7–2.8.2009: International Arts Carnival: HKS McDull Music Project 4
29.8.2009: Great Cello Concertos: Tatjana Plays Dvo?ák
11.9.2009: Viva Beethoven!
19.9.2009: Decoding Beethoven 1
20.9.2009: Decoding Beethoven 2
26 & 27.9.2009: Know Your Classical Music: Clarinet
10.10.2009: Freddy Kempf Plays Schumann
6.11.2009: Great Violin Concertos: Matthew Trusler Plays Mendelssohn
15.11.2009: CLP Light Classics Concert
27–29.11.2009: HKS for Kids: Top Scores
12.12.2009: Great Cello Concertos: Han-Na Chang Plays Haydn
13.12.2009: Decoding Haydn
15–17.1.2010: Disney in Concert
30 & 31.1.2010: HKS for Kids: Classical Music for Babies
5 & 6.2.2010: Ode to Beethoven
Tickets for concerts are normally available at URBTIX outlets 8 weeks prior to the concerts. Please refer to individual concert leaflets for details.
The 2009/2010 Season brochure can be downloaded from the homepage of this website.
Programme enquiries: ﹕2836 3336 / info@hksinfonietta.org
HONG KONG SINFONIETTA
Music Director: Yip Wing-sie
Founded in 1990 by a group of local musicians, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta is one of Hong Kong’s flagship orchestras which has become reputed as “one of the world's great small orchestras”. Together with the renowned conductor Yip Wing-sie as the Music Director, the orchestra has brought quality orchestral music closer to the community through innovative programming, as well as gaining significant recognition on local and international stages for its passionate and energetic performances.
Since 1999, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta has collaborated with an illustrious array of international musicians and groups, including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Plácido Domingo, Augustin Dumay, Fou Ts'ong, Christopher Hogwood, Luciano Pavarotti and Pinchas Zukerman. The orchestra has also been regularly on the participant list of all the major festivals in Hong Kong including the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Le French May, and festivals presented by the Hong Kong Government. As an avid believer of keeping music alive and contemporary, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta was also the official orchestra for many years for the local contemporary music festival Musicarama.
On tour, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta was the first Asian orchestra to be invited by the Saint-Riquier Festival to perform in the medieval town in northern France in 2001. In 2004, the orchestra returned to the Festival, as well as to Les Flâneries Musicales d'Été de Reims, as part of the Year of China in France. In 2005, it was invited back to Reims and to two festivals in Lithuania and became the first orchestra from China to present a concert at the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw. Since its début in 2006, the orchestra has become a regular guest at La Folle Journée in Tokyo (returned visits in 2007 and 2009). In 2007, it also made its début at the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival. Apart from performing in Japan, the orchestra has been invited to give concerts in Macao and at festivals in Bergamo, Brescia and Vicenza in Italy in 2009.
At home, the orchestra performs year-round and is the Venue Partner of the Hong Kong City Hall. It performs over 80 times each year with local and international soloists and groups such as The Royal Ballet, Kirov Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, English National Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Hong Kong Ballet and Opera Hong Kong. Apart from standard orchestral repertoire, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta commissions new works every year and also ventures into crossover concerts with other art forms. Its discography includes CDs of works by Chinese composers on HUGO and a 2CD album This is Classical Music on DECCA.
On the educational front, Hong Kong Sinfonietta pioneered specially-designed “educational” concerts for different age groups. New concepts on the Hong Kong concert stage: HKS for Kids (for children), Short-cut to Classical Music, Know Your Classical Music (for adults) and HKS McDull Music Project have provided a new realm in “audience development”.
Music Director Yip Wing-sie, one of Asia's most renowned conductors, was the winner of the First Prize and LYRE d'OR in the 35th Concours International de Jeunes Chefs d'Orchestre de Besançon, the Koussevitsky Scholarship, the Seiji Ozawa Fellowship Award and a prizewinner in the 8th Tokyo International Conducting Competition. She has studied with Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Bernstein, Gustav Meier, Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Norman Del Mar. Currently she is also the Principal Guest Conductor of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra.
For further information, please contact Ms Amanda Mok, Senior Promotion Officer:
Email：amanda.mok@hksinfonietta.org Tel: 2836 3336 / 9727 1808
For photos, please download from www.hksl.org/media_rooms/image_library.aspx or contact Ms Amanda Mok.
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