Le Zabrina Lo
February 09, 2021
Jaap van Zweden takes a look and stays optimistic after a terrible year for the performing arts
A 60th birthday would normally be a cause for widespread celebration, but Jaap van Zweden adhered to the rules for it on December 12th. After returning to the city of Amsterdam, where local laws prohibit the gathering of more than two residents of the same home, the music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) had a low key dinner at the home. with family. “What can you do?” he says drily. “A party of just two would not have been very interesting.”
Despite almost a full year of canceled concerts and anxious programming, the Dutch conductor and fiddler, who has been conducting the HK Phil since 2012, had at least one thing in 2020 In October, the Hong Kong Silver Bauhinia Star, honored by those who have given outstanding service to the Hong Kong community or his career, was honored for his efforts in pushing the concert to new heights on the international stage.
The award came as an inspiration to Van Zweden after an engaging season marked not only by silent soundtracks but also quarantine of the entire orchestra after one member signed a contract with Covid-19. Nevertheless, he feels a sense of responsibility and purpose as he continues to promote the concert in Hong Kong. “We need to be mentally strong to overcome a lot of frustration,” he said via Zoom. “We have been striving to be the best ambassadors for classical music and for Hong Kong. ”
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Compared to New York, Vienna and other European cities, Hong Kong is usually not a place associated with classical music. New York Philharmonic, where Van Zweden is simultaneously musical director, has been around for 179 years, but the HK Phil, originally named the Sino-British Orchestra, is less than a century old. ‘age. Van Zweden saw the potential of HK Phil when his chairman, Liu Yuen-sung, invited him to lead after attending his concerts in the US and the Netherlands.
“Every orchestra has its own voice, its own DNA,” Van Zweden says. “Compared to other hundred-year-old American and European orchestras, the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s youth comes with dynamism and enthusiasm. Our musicians still feel the stomach butterflies when they visit other places. ”
In HK Phil, Van Zweden found a group of thoughtless musicians willing to try new non-controversial things. “We’ll do the classic, of course,” he said. “But at the same time we work closely with Hong Kong composers with an Eastern style of music and a cultural background. We are also very much into new music made by a live writer. ”The HK Phil also breaks away from traditional music performances. “We perform outdoor concerts such as our annual Swire Symphony Under the Stars concert in the city center. We do concerts for disabled children at special schools, ”said Van Zweden, himself the father of a child with autism. With his wife, Aaltje van Zweden, he founded the Papageno Foundation in 1997 to help children with autism through music therapy.
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HK Phil has grown in range over the years, collaborating with Hong Kong Opera, Hong Kong Art Festival and international stars, such as pianist Lang Lang and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Starting in 2015, HK Phil embarked on a four-year project to play and record The Circle The Circle. Composed by Richard Wagner, the grand work of 1857, consisting of four operas, is renowned for its complexity. “It was very challenging, but HK Phil did so well that he is one of the world’s leading orchestras,” Van Zweden says. One opera was awarded each year and the recordings, released by classical music broadcaster Naxos, won the 2019 Gramophone Orchestra of the Year Award, making it the HK Phil ‘s first Asian orchestra to receive the award.
A year ago, as the pandemic began to apply to the performing arts around the world, a new challenge emerged. With social distance measures in place for the city, the concert has stopped or discontinued dozens of performances, and there are no more certain programs in the new season. Last month, artists such as Argentinian director Mariano Chiacchiarini and even Van Zweden himself, who returned to Amsterdam for Christmas, decided not to travel to Hong Kong for their new year celebrations with the a fourth wave of Covid-19 cases in the city.
The Hong Kong Philharmonic’s youth comes with dynamism and enthusiasm
– Jaap Van Zweden
It was the hardest moment when Lorenzo bass clarinet player Antonio Iosco tested positive for Covid-19 in October last year. The entire concert was placed in a quarantine camp for 14 days, and Iosco, with symptoms, was treated at Princess Margaret Hospital. Unlike other acting artists who may be running online, HK Phil’s predictions are only possible in a performance hall.
After Iosco’s recovery, the concert began with live previews and performances by Plexiglas separatists between musicians, which was a challenge, Iosco recalls. “In terms of pronunciation, sound projection and ensemble, it took some time to get used to it,” he says. “Performing without an audience was another problem: all musicians know the importance and excitement of playing for a live audience. ”
However, he said: “Thanks to technology, classical music can continue to be recorded and streamed online. As Jaap always says, changing fast is always the most successful method and one of the features of this orchestra is changing to challenges. ”
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There are benefits to digital achievements. At the Swire Symphony Under the Stars live concert on Dec. 12, listeners were invited to submit photos of their favorites, which were used to create a video set for orchestral music. The concert ended with a retelling of a song by Canton crooner Roman Tam Below the Rock of the Lion, used as the subject of the old TV show of the same name and often cited as Hong Kong’s unofficial anthem for the theme of unity.
As Van Zweden and his team stand on the new season, the music director is now challenged to create a program with no sense in an ever – moving landscape. “Can we, for example, start the concerts with a chorus when we know there is a danger in singing?” he asked. Despite another recession season, HK Phil has a range of concerts planned for 2021 – local jazz; collaboration with Bale Hong Kong; assumes Mozart, Schumann and Bruckner; and an online concert of Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi, best known for his work for Studio Ghibli, directing his music.
But as sad as last year was, the scope of Van Zweden ‘s plans for the concert has not diminished.
“We have big plans to go to Europe, America and the Silk Road,” he said. “But we depend on when this is over. Think about the Rolling Stones: they went on world tours year after year, because when you go somewhere, people love you, but then they forget about you. So you have to come back all the time, and then after several years, everyone knows who you are. The world needs to know that HK Phil is one of Hong Kong’s major assets.
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