The Hong Kong Philharmonic Presents Swire Sunday Family Series: Great Music To Great Britain

On Sunday, 8 April in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) is delighted to present an afternoon concert for all the family featuring great music associated with Great Britain. HK Phil's Principal Guest Conductor Yu Long, the orchestra and violinist Ning Feng will introduce music from British composers Alun Hoddinott, Edward Elgar and Peter Maxwell Davies, as well as British-themed music from non-British composers including Percy Grainger and Max Bruch.

Alun Hoddinott was one of Wales's most important composers. Badger in the Bag is a short orchestral piece which depicts a story from the ancient book of Welsh legends, the Mabinogion. It is a work that is both playful and sinister, and reflects Hoddinott's fascination with orchestral colour.

The title comes from Shakespeare's Othello, and the Pomp and Circumstance Marches are among Elgar's best-known works. The march no. 1 was composed in 1901 and the premiere was a tremendous success. Elgar later used it in his Coronation Ode where he added the words "Land of Hope and Glory".

English-born composer Peter Maxwell Davies was Master of the Queen's Music from 2004 to 2014 and was knighted in 1987. A long-term resident of the Orkney Islands off the Scottish coast, he composed An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise in 1984 as a musical portrayal of an actual wedding he attended on Hoy in Orkney.

Percy Grainger was based in London between 1901 and 1914, and developed an interest in recording folk songs of the British Isles. One of the songs he found while visiting Northern Ireland was the famous Irish Tune from County Derry, which later became a hit song to the words "Danny Boy".

Max Bruch is known today primarily for two works for violin and orchestra - his famous Violin Concerto and the Scottish Fantasy. Bruch found the tunes on which the Scottish Fantasy is based in a famous collection of traditional Scottish folk melodies arranged by the poet Robert Burns.

Gramophone magazine wrote of Ning Feng's performance of Scottish Fantasy: "He's in his element with the virtuoso high jinks of the Scherzo and finale, tossed off without turning a hair." In this programme, our audience will hear this renowned violinist performing the 3rd and 4th movements of this popular work.

Tickets priced: HK$380, $280, $180, $120 are now available at URBTIX. For enquiries, please call +852 2721 2332 or visit www.hkphil.org.

Yu Long, conductor [full biography]
Yu Long is currently Artistic Director of the Beijing Music Festival and the China Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Director of the Shanghai and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestras, the co-director of MISA Shanghai Summer Festival, and the Principal Guest Conductor of the HK Phil. Yu Long frequently conducts the leading orchestras and opera companies around the world. In 2010, he received an Honorary Academician from the Central Conservatory of Beijing for his great dedication to cultural exchange and music development in China.

Ning Feng, violin [full biography]
Established at the highest level in China, Ning Feng performs regularly in his native country with major international and local orchestras, in recital and with the Dragon Quartet which he founded in 2012. Ning Feng has developed a reputation internationally as an artist of great lyricism and emotional transparency, displaying tremendous bravura and awe-inspiring technical accomplishment. Recent successes for Ning Feng have included on tour with Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Jaap van Zweden which included performances in Singapore, Seoul, Osaka, Sydney and Melbourne in 2017.

The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) is recognised as Asia's foremost classical orchestra. Presenting more than 150 concerts over a 44-week season, the HK Phil attracts more than 200,000 music lovers annually.

Jaap van Zweden, one of today's most sought-after conductors, has been the orchestra's Music Director since the 2012/13 concert season, a position he will continue to hold until 2022. Maestro van Zweden will be the next Music Director of the New York Philharmonic from the 2018/19 season.

Yu Long was appointed Principal Guest Conductor with the HK Phil for a three-year period commencing with the 2015/16 season.

Under the dynamic leadership of Music Director Jaap van Zweden, the HK Phil has attained new heights of artistic excellence, garnering international critical acclaim.

Following on from the success of the European tour which included a filmed concert from Vienna's Musikverein, the HK Phil has toured extensively within the mainland China. In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the HKSAR, and with support of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices, the orchestra recently performed in Seoul, Osaka, Singapore, Melbourne and at the Sydney Opera House.

Jaap, the HK Phil, and a superb casts of soloists, have presented concert performances and recordings of the four operas from Richard Wagner's epic Ring cycle. These have been enthusiastically endorsed by both audiences and critics at home and abroad, and in recognition of their quality, the orchestra and Jaap have been invited to perform Wagner's Die Walküre in staged performances at the Beijing Music Festival last October in a co-production with the Salzburg Easter Festival.

Conductors and soloists who have recently performed with the orchestra include Vladimir Ashkenazy, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Matthias Goerne, Stephen Hough, Lang Lang, Yo-Yo Ma, Ning Feng and Yuja Wang.

The HK Phil promotes the work of Hong Kong and Chinese composers through an active commissioning programme, and has released recordings on the Naxos label featuring Tan Dun and Bright Sheng, each conducting their own compositions. Its acclaimed education and community engagement programmes in schools, hospitals and outdoor space, bring music into the hearts of tens of thousands of children and families every year.

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 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.