On 15th May, The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra performed Mozart Piano Concerto No.18, with pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Shostakovich Symphony No.11, The Year 1905 conducted by Case Scaglione.

The iconic egg-shaped structure of Beijing’s National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) sits forbiddingly surrounded by a man-made lake. It’s easy to miss the entrance ramp which leads to the box office lobby, the electronic ticket readers and the

A full house at London’s Cadogan Hall greeted the Hong Kong Philharmonic last week for their performance of music by Fung Lam, Beethoven and Prokofiev as part of the hall’s 2014-15 International Orchestra Series. In London’s crowded concert schedule, the

(Berliner Staatsoper im Schillertheater – 22 February 2015) It’s just another Sunday night in February at a Berlin opera house: Wolfgang Schaeuble, German Finance Minister, sits in the stalls with his wife and without visible security two days after negotiating

Richard Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) is an opera with unusually extensive chorus segments. And Director Tim Albery’s production at the Royal Opera House puts the chorus to unusually good use. Enthusiastic, dramatically intense and vocally polished, this

At a time when rumours of Sir Simon Rattle returning to the UK, no less to head the London Symphony Orchestra, were running thick and fast, it was no surprise that I found myself in a sold-out Barbican Hall, preparing

The casual operagoer would be forgiven for not being sure whether The Royal Opera House’s new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Ballo in Maschera was set in Boston, as it usually is, or in Stockholm, as it often is and was

The Hong Kong Philharmonic under Jaap van Zweden pulled off a real coup. Carefully marketing the orchestra’s first ever Rheingold, the first of the four operas of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle that the orchestra is spacing out over four years