The HK Phil Reveals January 2025 Lineup

The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra will present a series of concerts in January 2025. Join in at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall for a series of musical journeys, from film-in-concert experiences to iconic operatic scenes and celebrated classical works. Tickets are now available at URBTIX.

Swire Denim Series: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Live in Concert (3 & 4 January)

For the first time in Hong Kong, audiences can experience composer Tan Dun’s entire Oscar and Grammy Award-winning scores for Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, performed live to picture. As the martial arts epic unfolds on the big screen above the stage, the HK Phil will bring the music to life under the baton of Australian conductor Benjamin Northey.

Set against the landscapes of ancient China, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon tells the story of the legendary master warrior Li Mubai (Chow Yun-Fat) and his secret love Yu Shulien (Michelle Yeoh), with whom he has entrusted the safekeeping of mythic sword known as the Green Destiny. Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi), the ambitious daughter of a rich and powerful governor and herself a skilled martial arts master, steals the Green Destiny and sets in motion events that forever change the fate of all who have sworn to protect the sword and the traditions of the legendary Wudang sect. This film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. 

Bayreuth: Scenes from the Ring (17 & 18 January)

Written over the span of 30 years, Richard Wagner’s monumental operatic masterpiece Der Ring of the Nibelung (Ring Cycle) is made up of four instalments: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung.  For the first time since performing the complete cycle from 2015-18, the HK Phil returns to Wagner’s Ring with selected scenes from Siegfried and Götterdämmerung.

Leading the HK Phil is Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen, praised by Das Opernglas as “one of the most inspired conductors who ever undertook the Ring in Bayreuth”. In 2023, he conducted the production of the Ring Cycle at the Bayreuth Festival. Joining the HK Phil in the performances of this opera saga are two distinguished soloists: Wagnerian soprano Ricarda Merbeth, known for her commanding portrayal of Brünnhilde, and Heldentenor Stefan Vinke, renowned for his powerful interpretation of Siegfried.

Spanish Fiesta (24 & 25 January)

Led by Josep Pons, one of the foremost Spanish conductors of his generation and currently Music Director of Gran Teatre del Liceu, the programme features highlights from Spanish composer Manuel De Falla’s masterpieces, La vida breve and El amor brujo. Brimming with the vibrant colours and strident rhythms of Spain, these works ignited the imagination of French composers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Among them was Maurice Ravel whose Basque heritage is omnipresent in his oeuvre. To complement Falla’s inspiring works, the programme includes Ravel’s Spanish-influenced orchestral pieces, Alborada del gracioso and Rapsodie espagnole. In addition, charismatic flamenco singer María Toledo will sing Falla’s poignant melodies in El amor brujo. 

Swire Denim Series: Happy Birthday Mozart! (27 January)

Hong Kong-born conductor Teresa Cheung, Resident Conductor of the Endless Mountain Music Festival in New York and Pennsylvania, and recipient of the JoAnn Falletta Conducting Award for the most promising female conductors, makes her HK Phil debut with this all-Mozart programme, celebrating the composer’s birth on 27 January 1756.

The concert opens with the overture to The Marriage of Figaro, followed by the Concerto for Flute and Harp, featuring HK Phil Principal Flute Megan Sterling and Tjasha Gafner, first prize harp winner in the 2023 ARD International Music Competition in Munich. The evening concludes with Mozart’s 41st Symphony, whose radiant and solemn characteristic earned it the nickname Jupiter, though the composer himself never gave it this title.

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