South China Morning Post - Music

The question of what makes an orchestra great is a constant source of discussion in classical music. Distinct, cultivated “bodies of sound” or Klangkörper – to use the German word – are what define the top, tradition-rich ensembles performing today. One of them, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, blessed Hong Kong with back-to-back concerts in the first week of June, featuring fo...

As he prepares to celebrate his 80th birthday on June 10, it is fair to say that Anders Nelsson has witnessed more of Hong Kong’s evolution than most. Since arriving in the city in 1950 aged four, the California-born son of Swedish missionaries has found fame as a musician, singer-songwriter, composer, concert promoter, record producer and actor, all against the backdrop of a ci...

On the second weekend of May, Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel gave the New York Philharmonic a salsa shock. He gleefully brought the startled players together with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, an uptown salsa and jazz band, for concerts at the city’s Lincoln Centre and United Palace. New York’s classical music fans treated it as a cultural breakthrough; Dudamel is expected...

Looking to take off into a new era after nearly two decades under the charismatic Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic announced on May 26 that it had hired Daniel Harding, a British conductor who is also an Air France pilot, as its next music director. Harding, a 50-year-old who is known mostly for his work with European orchestras and is highly sought-after in Asia, a...

Sitarist and composer Anoushka Shankar’s latest work, Chapters – a deeply personal trilogy written and released between January 2023 and March 2025 – was born from an intense post-pandemic creative block. “I had this notion that after the pandemic I needed to make the most significant work of my life,” Shankar says. “So, of course, as a result, I had nothing.” The paralysis brok...