Aristo Sham to Perform with HK Phil in Upcoming Concert

The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra will welcome the return of acclaimed Hong Kong pianist Aristo Sham on 18 March. Fresh from his triumph as the Gold Medalist and Audience Award winner of the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Sham returns to perform Rachmaninov's fiery and youthful First Piano Concerto.

Sham began his formal training at The Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and quickly gained recognition. At the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, he found his breakthrough moment, following which critics showered him with praise.      He was mentioned in more than 800 news articles, and his Cliburn performance videos were streamed two million times across 125 countries within just two months.

A familiar face to HK Phil audiences, Sham last appeared with the orchestra in 2022 in Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto no. 1 – one of the works he performed on his path to Cliburn victory – and first took the stage with the HK Phil at just 11, performing Beethoven's First Piano Concerto in 2007.

Before Sham's appearance, renowned American conductor David Robertson, acclaimed for bringing clarity to even the most complex scores, leads the evening with two symphonic works from different eras, connected with the masterly developed motives and textures. The concert begins with Sibelius's Symphony no. 7 – a single movement lasting just half the length of the First, yet hailed as a consummate masterpiece.

The other masterpiece is John Adams's Doctor Atomic Symphony. Doctor Atomic is about the creation of the first atomic bomb, Adams recomposed scenes from his three-hour stage score, and compressed them into a through-worked symphonic whole.