The HK Phil Presents Three Great Conductors During October and November

Audiences in Hong Kong will enjoy a very musical autumn when the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) presents three great programmes featuring three of the greatest conductors of our time - Jaap van Zweden, Christoph Eschenbach and Charles Dutoit.

Bravo Series: Eschenbach's Dvoák (6 & 7 October 2017)

In this concert with the HK Phil, the German-born maestro will offer his searing interpretation of Dvo?ák's Symphony no. 8. He will also direct Brahms's magnificent Piano Concerto no. 2 featuring the amazing pianist Tzimon Barto.

The Eighth has long vied with the Ninth ("From the New World") as Dvo?ák's most popular symphony. Its blend of innocence, folk melody, drama and grandeur make it one of his most colourful compositions.

Eschenbach and Barto have performed together frequently since 1988. Their unique personal chemistry promises to provide a fizzing interpretation of Brahms's Second Piano Concerto, a work which changed composers' whole approach to writing piano concertos. Instead of three movements, it has four, and while it is not the biggest piano concerto of all, it is certainly one of the longest and most lavishly scored. It requires so much virtuosity from the orchestra that the noted critic Eduard Hanslick described it as "a symphony with piano obbligato".

Bravo Series: Eschenbach's Dvo?ák will be held on 6 & 7 October 2017 (Fri & Sat), 8PM, in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall. Tickets priced: HK$680, $480, $380, $280 are now available at URBTIX.

Artists

Christoph Eschenbach, conductor

Christoph Eschenbach is the Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra and the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts. He is the former Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, Philadelphia Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra and Houston Symphony. Eschenbach has been awarded the Légion d'Honneur, Commandeur dans I'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Commander's Cross of German Order of Merit and the Leonard Bernstein Award from the Pacific Music Festival.

Tzimon Barto, piano

Born and raised in Florida, Tzimon Barto received his first piano lessons from his grandmother at the age of five, and later attended the Juilliard School of Music where he won the Gina Bachauer Competition two years in a row. Tzimon Barto's international breakthrough came in the mid-1980s, when he appeared at the Vienna Musikverein and the Salzburg Festival at the invitation of Herbert von Karajan. He has since performed with nearly every major international orchestra.

Jaap Essential Series: Jaap's Bruckner 8 (13 October 2017, one concert only)

Bruckner's Eighth Symphony is a truly monumental work. It took him more than five years to write and was to be the last symphony he would ever complete. Jaap van Zweden, Music Director of the HK Phil and conductor of the concert, has said of Bruckner; "In our time when we seek religious experience and are looking for the light, if one composer can bring us close and show us light, it is Bruckner."

For this very special concert, Jaap will be presenting his very personal take on Bruckner's glorious, magisterial and intensely beautiful Eighth Symphony.

Jaap's Essential Series: Jaap's Bruckner 8 will be held on 13 October 2017 (Fri), 8PM, in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall. Tickets priced: HK$680, $480, $380, $280 are now available at URBTIX.

Artists

Jaap van Zweden, conductor

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.

Bravo Series: Dutoit & Lugansky (17 & 18 November 2017)

For over 50 years Charles Dutoit has been recognised as one of the leading orchestral conductors. He has just been awarded with one of classical music's highest honours, the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal. The Swiss conductor returns to the stage of the HK Phil to reveal his special affinity with Stravinsky and his instinctive feel for French music. He is joined by Nikolai Lugansky, one of the best Rachmaninov interpreters of our time, in the epic Third Concerto.

The programme starts and ends with French music, opening with Berlioz's extrovert and vividly colourful Roman Carnival Overture, and ending with Ravel's lushly atmospheric Daphnis and Chloé Suite no. 2.

In the middle there will be two Russian masterpieces. The first is Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto no. 3, which the composer wrote for his American tour in 1909. The premiere with the New York Symphony Orchestra was a huge success and the piece is regarded as the pinnacle of Romantic piano concertos. The second is Stravinsky's The Song of the Nightingale inspired by a story by Hans Christian Anderson (The Nightingale). Stravinsky first intended it to be an opera, turned it into a ballet and, in 1919, arranged it as the orchestral tone poem the HK Phil plays in this concert.

Bravo Series: Dutoit & Lugansky will be held on 17 & 18 November 2017 (Fri & Sat), 8PM, in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall. Tickets priced: HK$680, $480, $380, $280 are now available at URBTIX.

For enquiries, visit www.hkphil.org.

Artists

Charles Dutoit, conductor

Recently appointed Chief Conductor and Music Advisor of the Philadelphia Orchestra as well as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Charles Dutoit regularly collaborates with the world's pre-eminent orchestras and soloists. Charles Dutoit has been invited each season to conduct major orchestras in the United States and all the great orchestras of Europe, including the Berlin Philharmonic and Amsterdam's Concertgebouw Orchestra as well as with all the London orchestras, the major orchestras of Japan, South America and Australia.

Nikolai Lugansky, piano

Lugansky was awarded the honour of People's Artist of Russia in 2013. Described by Gramophone as "the most trailblazing and meteoric performer of all" Nikolai Lugansky is a pianist of extraordinary depth and versatility. He regularly works with top level conductors including Charles Dutoit, and his concerto highlights for the 2017/18 season include engagements with the London and Baltimore symphony orchestras, the HK Phil and many more. He will also take part in European tours with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra/Sakari Oramo, and the Russian National Orchestra.

Tickets of the following three programmes are now available at URBTIX. Programmes are for ages 6 and above.