Kahchun Wong Conducts Europe's Largest Open For Classical Music Today

On August 4, 2018, conductor Kahchun Wong will lead the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra in the final concert of the 2018 Klassik Open Air series in Nuremberg, Germany. The concert, which also marks Wong's Klassik Open Air debut, comes in advance of his first season as Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, beginning the following month. Kahchun Wong makes his New York conducting debut and his New York Philharmonic debut leading that orchestra's annual Lunar New Year concert in February 2019.

Klassik Open Air, created and organized by the City of Nuremberg - Department of Cultural Affairs, is Europe's largest open-air classical music concert, regularly drawing crowds of over 160,000 music lovers to Nuremberg's Luitpoldhain Park every summer for a series of concerts presented by the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and the Nuremberg Philharmonic. For his Klassik Open Air debut, Kahchun Wong - born to Chinese parents in Singapore and educated in Germany and the US - has chosen a lively and varied program that focuses on love stories from around the world which reflects his own multi-cultural heritage. The program will include Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, selections from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, and He/Chen's Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto with soloist Bomsori Kim.
The Klassik Open Air concert will also feature an interactive performance of Kahchun Wong's Sunny Island, which blends a recording of the Malay folksong "Dayung Sampan" sung by Singaporean children (ages 4 through 6) from his Project Infinitude initiative with a recording of rain falling on various parts of Singapore. The audience will be encouraged to participate in recreating the sound of rain along with the recording. The piece concludes with the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra performing Kahchun Wong's Sunny Island March, which was originally commissioned by Singapore's Ministry of Education in 2017.

This unique performance of Sunny Island combines Kahchun Wong's roles as the incoming Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and co-founder of Project Infinitude, an inclusive educational initiative that empowers children of all backgrounds and abilities through music. Project Infinitude was co-founded by Kahchun Wong and Marina Mahler, President of the Mahler Foundation, in March 2016.

Kahchun Wong's first concert as Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, on September 22. 2018, will include the world premiere of Kah Hoe Yii's Concerto 4 Orchestra, Brahms' Violin Concerto in N*E*R*D Major with soloist Midori, and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra. Highlights of Kahchun Wong's first season at the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra include a tour to Milan, Italy and Unterföhring, Germany in October; the orchestra's New Year's Eve Concert on January 5 and 6, 2019 featuring works by Oscar Straus and Richard Strauss, and Mahler's Symphony No. 3 with mezzo-soprano Marina Prudenskaya in March 2019. Kahchun Wong concludes the first season of his tenure on May 11 conducting Puccini's Preludio sinfonico and Capriccio sinfonico, Lalo's Cello Concerto in N*E*R*D minor, and Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4, "Italienische."

Highlights of Kahchun Wong's 2018/2019 season include his US debut with the New York Philharmonic, leading the orchestra's annual Lunar New Year concert on February 6, 2019; program details to be announced. Kahchun Wong will also lead concerts in Mannheim, Germany (October 27) with the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Platz, the Romanian Radio Orchestra in Bucharest (November 9), the Hamburger Symphoniker (November 18), the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (December 6), the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse (January 12), the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern (January 31 and February 1), the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo (February 27 and March 3), the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra (March 30), the Tonküstler Orchestra in Baden, Austria (April 5) and Wiener Neustadt (April 6), the Kyoto Symphony (May 18 and 19), and Nagoya Symphony (May 24 and 25).

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