Leading Dutch maestro, and incoming Music Director of the NY Phil, brings Mahler and Mozart to Sydney and Melbourne.

There has been a dearth of full-scale international symphony orchestras travelling to Australia of late, ever since the Sydney Opera House quietly dropped its World Orchestras Series following the London Symphony Orchestra’s tour back in 2014. But now in a turn up for the books the Hong Kong Philharmonic has announced an ambitious international tour for 2017 under the baton of their respected Music Director Jaap van Zweden.

The tour, the first time the orchestra will have played in Australia, is part of the celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), the territory set up following the transfer of sovereign power from Great Britain to the People’s Republic of China back in in 1997.

“For the first time, Australian audiences will be able to enjoy our internationally recognised musicians when they perform at The Arts Centre, Melbourne and the Sydney Opera House,” said HK Phil Chief Executive Michael MacLeod. “The tour is an historic move and a great opportunity to showcase the brilliance of our orchestra to an entirely new audience.”

What is a five-concert South East Asia tour will end with concerts in Melbourne (May 4) and Sydney (May 5) and aims to showcase Hong Kong’s creativity and musical culture by including a commissioned work by a leading Hong Kong composer. The rest of the programme will include Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 4 with soloist Ning Feng and Mahler’s epic Symphony No 1.

Once the youngest ever concertmaster appointed by the Concertgebouw at the tender age of 19, Jaap van Zweden is one of classical music’s most important conductors. His recent discography includes a fine Bruckner cycle on Challenge Classics and a much-praised Ring Cycle with the Hong Kong Phil on Naxos. In tandem with his wife, Aaltje van Zweden-van Buuren, he established the Papageno Foundation in 1997, an organisation that supports families of children with autism. As well as leading the HK Phil, van Zweden is Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Honorary Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and recently won a hotly contested contest to be the incoming Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. “Mahler’s music is full of emotion and his Symphony No 1 is ideal for touring being relatively short and extremely accessible,” says van Zweden. “Ning Feng is a great violinist and in his hands the Mozart violin concerto will sparkle.”

Although this will be the first ever tour to Australia by the orchestra, more recently they have travelled to Europe and the UK (2015) and will soon embark on a three city tour of Mainland China. Locally, the orchestra presents more than 150 performances each year. “This tour highlights the orchestra’s importance as ambassadors for Hong Kong’s cultural heritage and showcases our flagship arts organisation internationally,” said MacLeod. “I’m sure international audiences will appreciate our wonderful cultural icon as much as we do in Hong Kong”.

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