The HK Phil Presents A Jazz Night With Hiromi and A Viennese New Year

For the upcoming festive season, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) brings two stylish programmes to audience in Hong Kong. In anticipation of Christmas celebrations, composer/jazz pianist HIROMI joins hands with fellow Japanese conductor Ryusuke Numajiri to share her music in two nights of jazz at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall on 23 & 24 December. And to bid farewell to the year 2019, British conductor Christopher Warren-Green teams up with Canadian/American coloratura soprano Sharleen Joynt to bring our audience a Viennese New Year in Hong Kong. Two performances will take place at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall: one each on 30 & 31 December.

A Jazz Night with HIROMI (23 & 24 December)

What better Christmas present to suggest than to enjoy a dazzling display of virtuosity and compelling showmanship by HIROMI. On the two nights leading up to Christmas itself, the star Japanese jazz pianist and composer HIROMI brings her music to the stage of the HK Phil with conductor Ryusuke Numajiri, himself a strong advocate of contemporary music.

Arguably the most famous musician in the Japanese jazz scene, HIROMI made her debut in 2003 and has 13 albums to her credit to date. Her unique musical style is most succinctly summed up in her own words: "Other people can put a name on what I do. It's just the union of what I've been listening to and what I've been learning. It has some elements of classical music, it has some rock, it has some jazz."

For these two jazzy nights, HIROMI will add glitter and sparkle to our Christmas celebrations with her original compositions for jazz piano and orchestra, including Place to Be (title track from her 2009 album), The Tom and Jerry Show (from her debut album Another Mind), Spiral (another title track from her acclaimed 2006 album), and more!

Concert Sponsor: Chow Sang Sang.
Piano Sponsor: Tom Lee Music

A Viennese New Year (30 & 31 December)

For the HK Phil's traditional New Year concert, the orchestra ushers in 2020 with a joyful and exuberant programme of popular waltzes and polkas from the era when Vienna was the City of Dance and Johann Strauss II its undisputed king. Kickstarted by conductor Christopher Warren-Green, who has conducted at many important British royal occasions, the celebration begins with a rendition of the Overture from the Waltz King's operetta Die Fledermaus.

Prized for her "lovely, pure voice" (Times Colonist) with nicely controlled phrasing and admirable projection, the young and radiant soprano Sharleen Joynt will sing two coloratura showstoppers: the "Audition Song" from Die Fledermaus, and "Glitter and be Gay" from Leonard Bernstein's comic operetta Candide.

This concert also includes the Asia premieres of two contemporary orchestral works. Inspired by American minimalists, Robert Moran's Points of Departure is a musical celebration of dance. The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven, created by the eminent Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, meanwhile offers a quick and fun preview of all of Beethoven's symphonies. Originally composed in 1970 for concerts celebrating Beethoven's bicentennial, Andriessen's work is fittingly presented in anticipation of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth in 2020.

Naturally, our Viennese-flavoured celebration concludes with the perennial favourite The Blue Danube Waltz before our audience is ready to march on to the New Year's Countdown at the Tsim Sha Tsui harbourfront.

Holidays & Pops: A Jazz Night with Hiromi will be held on 23 & 24 December (Mon & Tue) at 8PM in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall. Tickets are HK$480, $380, $280 and $220 and are available at URBTIX.

Holidays & Pops: A Viennese New Year will be held on 30 & 31 December (Mon & Tue) at 8PM in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall. Tickets are HK$480, $380, $280 and $220 and are available at URBTIX.

For enquiries, please call +852 2721 2332 or visit hkphil.org.

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