17 May (Fri)
"Beethoven’s Fantasy: yesterday, now & beyond" promises to be a remarkable orchestral music event, celebrating the enduring legacy of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. It will feature innovative works by Tanja Elisa Glinsner and So Ho Chi, both lauded recipients of the prestigious Helmut Sohmen Composition Prize. Their compositions, inspired by the iconic symphony, will offer a contemporary interpretation of Beethoven's genius. The Academy Symphony Orchestra will also join forces with the Academy Choir to bring a performance of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy. This synthesis of classic and modern, honoring the past while looking to the future, encapsulates the spirit of musical evolution and the timeless influence of Beethoven's work.
Programme
Academy Symphony Orchestra x Helmut Sohmen Composition Prize Concert - Conductor: Sharon Andrea Choa ----- Beethoven’s Fantasy: yesterday, now & beyond
Sharon Andrea Choa, Conductor
“Beethoven's monumental 9th Symphony with its universally-lauded choral finale "Ode to Joy" was premiered exactly 200 years ago in May 1824. We are celebrating this important anniversary by premiering two new works that are inspired by Beethoven's "Ode" but expressed in a contemporary context. The commissioning of these 2 works is generously supported by Dr. Helmut Sohmen, offering two composition prizes each to a graduate of The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and a graduate of the University of Music & Performing Arts Vienna. The evening's programme will also include Beethoven's "Choral Fantasy" - a precursor to his 9th Symphony foreshadowing the concept and actual melodic ideas of the "Ode to Joy".”
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So Ho Chi (Composer)
"O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
The beginning of the fourth movement of the Beethoven 9th symphony, makes me rethink the boundary in music between the noise and harmony. In this piece I captured the ephemeral moments of peaceful coexistence of different voices through spectrally reconstruction and reorchestration of the unresolved dissonant chords.
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Tanja Glinsner (Composer)
“SCINTILLAE or "froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen..."
This piece draws on circular forms and symbols, which are omnipresent in Schiller's Ode to Joy, and is therefore especially harmonically influenced by the number Pi. With this work, the composer sought to imitate a vast, infinite canopy of stars on which "its suns fly joyfully". "Do you feel the Creator, world? Look for him above the canopy of stars!''
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