Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra

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The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra ( Chinese  香港管弦樂團  /  香港管弦乐团 , Pinyin Xiānggǎng Guǎnxián Yuètuán , Jyutping Hoeng 1 gong 2 Gun 2 jin 4 Ngok 6 tyun 4  - "Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra"), commonly known mostly for short HKPO or HKPhil ( 港樂  /  港 乐 , Gǎngyuè , Jyutping Gong 2 ngok 6 ), is the largest symphony orchestra in Hong Kong . Founded in 1947 as an amateur orchestra under the name Sino-British Orchestra ( 中 英 管弦樂 團  /  中 英 管弦乐 团 , Zhōng Yīng Guǎnxián Yuètuán , Jyutping Zung 1 Jing 1 Gun 2 jin 4 Ngok 6 tyun 4 ), renamed the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and in 1957 In 1974 transformed into a professional orchestra with financial support from the British Crown Colony Administration.

history

Sino-British Orchestra

The Sino-British-Club was founded in 1946 in order to counteract the cultural striving of the different, especially the Chinese and British population groups . An organization dedicated to the care of drama, literature, film and music on an intercultural level.

At the instigation of Anthony Braga, one of the directors of the club's music group, some musicians got together in 1947, whose aim was to found a symphony orchestra to play and maintain classical music, but also in public , still marked by the aftermath of World War II , to arouse interest in it. Twenty amateur musicians quickly got together and formed a chamber orchestra, which gave weekly public concerts in the summer of the same year.

Solomon Bard , a violinist who had completed his medical degree in Great Britain and returned to Hong Kong in the fall of 1947, was won over by Braga to conduct the orchestra. He accepted the challenge and made his conducting debut at St. Stephen's Girls' College on April 30, 1948 .

Arrigo Foa

Bard took a liking to his work as chief conductor of the orchestra, but in order to improve the quality of the orchestra, he invited the violinist and conductor Arrigo Foa to take over as chief conductor in 1953 . Bard stayed with the orchestra as concertmaster and second conductor.

Foa, a professional musician who was hired as concertmaster by the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra in 1919 , won Mario Paci as conductor in 1942, during the occupation of China and Hong Kong by the Japanese . Because of the political situation in the People's Republic of China , Foa emigrated to Hong Kong in 1953, where he immediately found a job as chief conductor of the local orchestra. As one of the first internationally renowned soloists, Foa managed to win the piano virtuoso Louis Kentner to perform with the orchestra in Hong Kong.

Under the professional guidance of Foa, the orchestra quickly developed into a recognized institution in the city, so that well-known soloists such as the piano player Julius Katchen and the violinist Ruggiero Ricci also gave guest performances.

Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra

In 1957 the members of the orchestra decided to break away from their parent organization, the Sino-British Club group, and to reorganize as an independent body under the name of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HKPO) , which is still valid today . This cut in the history of the orchestra brought hardly any changes to the line-up, and Foa and Bard also stayed with the orchestra.

In 1974 the orchestra finally changed to a professional ensemble, as the Sino-British Club was also dissolved.

The orchestra gives more than 150 concerts a year, which more than 200,000 people attend annually (as of 2019). Internationally recognized soloists can always be won over to his performances. Underneath

In addition, they occasionally support and accompany local pop stars such as Frances Yip , Hacken Lee , Hins Cheung , Jacky Cheung , Leehom Wang and Teresa Carpio .

In 2019 the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra was awarded the Orchestra of the Year award by the specialist magazine Gramophone .

Concert tours

In February 1986 the HKPO made its debut in the People's Republic of China with the conductor Kenneth Schermerhorn and the soloists Stephanie Chase (violin) and Li Jian (piano). In the fall of 1995 the orchestra toured nine cities in the USA and Canada with David Atherton as conductor. In 2003 the orchestra made its first guest appearance in Europe and gave concerts in the Barbican Hall in London and also in Belfast, Dublin and Paris ( Théâtre des Champs-Élysées ). The second tour through Europe took the orchestra to five countries with performances in London , Zurich , Eindhoven , Birmingham , Berlin , Amsterdam , and at the Musikverein Vienna , where the performance was also filmed.

Sound recordings

The orchestra made its first sound recordings in 1978 for the Philips label with the violin concerto Butterfly Lovers and selected Chinese orchestral works with the Australian conductor Hans Gunther Mommer . In the 1980s, records were made for the HK Records label and later for the Marco Polo label, which was later taken over by the Naxos record company founded by Klaus Heymann .

David Atherton conducted several recordings for the Virgin Classics label, which later became part of the EMI group . In 1997 the orchestra recorded the album by Tan Dun Heaven Earth Mankind for Sony Classics : Symphony 1997 on the occasion of the return of the Crown Colony to China.

Between 2015 and 2018, the orchestra recorded the first recording of Richard Wagner's entire Ring of the Nibelungs in Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China. The four operas of the tetralogy were performed during this period and gradually recorded live for Naxos.

The orchestra also plays live recordings every year as crossover concerts with selected interpreters of the cantopop genre such as Michael Kwan (conducted by Joseph Koo ) in 1982, although the album, which was conducted in 1996 with Jacky Cheung and Wing-Sie Yip , continues to this day is most successful.

Venues

After the reorganization and renaming of the Sino-British Orchestra in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in 1957, the orchestra played the first concert in the Loke Yew Hall on the grounds of the University of Hong Kong and then in the Hong Kong City Hall , which in the first few years also was the main venue of the ensemble. In 1989, as part of the international festival of the arts, the newly built Hong Kong Cultural Center was inaugurated, to which the HKPO also made its contribution. From then on it became the main venue for the orchestra, but it was not until 2009 that the official partnership with the cultural center was offered.

The organized annually by the orchestra outdoor event called Symphony Under the Stars (about: Symphony under the stars) is the largest outdoor concert in Hong Kong and is visited every year by thousands of people. The venues are the Happy Valley Racecourse and the New Central Harbourfront .

Conductors

Sino-British Orchestra (1947–1957)

Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (1957–1973)

Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (since 1974)

Music directors

Honorary conductor

  • 2000-2009 David Atherton

First guest conductor

House conductor

Assistant conductor

Partner conductor

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oliver Chou: And the bands played on . In: Post Magazine . South China Morning Post . June 26, 2011. Archived from the original on February 12, 2012.
  2. ↑ Leon Chu: 百年 神話 是 怎樣 煉成 的 ( Chinese ) July 23, 2016. Accessed July 24, 2016.
  3. ↑ a b Vision and Mission on: HKPhil website
  4. ↑ Neil Fisher: Orchestra of the Year 2019 ( Memento of October 17, 2019 in the Internet Archive ) in: Gramophone
  5. ↑ Chinese orchestral works including "The butterfly lovers" violin concerto. WorldCat, accessed January 2, 2017 .