Media

French piano sensation Rémi Geniet & Russian star violinist Aylen Pritchin
present three performances in collaboration with Hong Kong Sinfonietta

For immediate release
8 Sep 2022

French piano sensation Rémi Geniet and Russian star violinist Aylen Pritchin will be visiting Hong Kong and treating the local audience to three stunning programmes this September!

Rémi Geniet will return to collaborate with Hong Kong Sinfonietta on 24 Sep (Sat), playing Brahms’ gorgeous Piano Concerto No 1 under the baton of Singaporean conductor Joshua Tan. On 29 Sep (Thu), Aylen Pritchin will make his début with the orchestra and Music Director Emeritus Yip Wing-sie, playing Mendelssohn’s well-loved Violin Concerto in E minor. The two stars will also join hands to present a beautiful recital programme on 27 Sep (Tue) which is not to be missed. Get your tickets now at URBTIX and POPTICKET!

French piano sensation Rémi Geniet returns to Hong Kong
Laureate of numerous international competitions and notably winner of the Second Prize at the 2013 Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition at the age of 20, French pianist Rémi Geniet is fast establishing himself as one of the most prominent pianists of his generation, with his début all-Bach CD receiving a Diapason d’Or in 2015. On 24 Sep, he will return to collaborate with Hong Kong Sinfonietta again at Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall, playing Brahms’ stunning Piano Concerto No 1 under the baton of Singaporean conductor Joshua Tan. The programme also includes Beethoven’s Symphony No 2, as well as the Asian première of American composer and Pulitzer Prize nominee Michael Gilbertson’s Beethoven-inspired The Beautiful & The Good.

Russian star violinist Aylen Pritchin debuts with Hong Kong Sinfonietta
First Prize winner of the 2014 Long-Thibaud International Competition and a prizewinner at the Wieniawski, Tchaikovsky, Sion-Valais, Kreisler and Oistrakh international violin competitions, Russian violinist Aylen Pritchin has impressed around the world with his stunning musicality and impeccable technique. On 29 Sep, he will perform Mendelssohn’s well-loved Violin Concerto in E minor with Hong Kong Sinfonietta and Music Director Emeritus Yip Wing-sie, who will also conduct the orchestra in Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, as well as Schumann’s delightful Symphony No 2.

A recital with the two stars
On 27 Sep, Geniet and Pritchin will also come together to present a recital to remember, playing the sonatas of Mozart, Beethoven and Richard Strauss; Geniet will also showcase his rendition of Ravel’s Valses Nobles et Sentimentales.

You can now enjoy a 20% off discount when purchasing full-price tickets to any two of the above programmes in the same transaction – don’t miss out!

Hong Kong Sinfonietta

Great Piano Concertos: Rémi Geniet Plays Brahms

24 Sep 2022 (Saturday) 8pm
HK City Hall Concert Hall
$420, $280, $160

Conductor: Joshua Tan
Piano: Rémi Geniet

Programme
Michael Gilbertson – The Beautiful & The Good (2018) (Asian première)
Beethoven – Symphony No 2 in D, Op 36
Brahms – Piano Concerto No 1 in D minor, Op 15

Great Violin Concertos: Aylen Pritchin Plays Mendelssohn

29 Sep 2022 (Thursday) 8pm
HK City Hall Concert Hall
$420, $280, $160

Music Director Emeritus/Conductor: Yip Wing-sie
Violin: Aylen Pritchin

Programme
Arvo Pärt – Fratres (1977/1991)
Mendelssohn – Violin Concerto in E minor, Op 64
Schumann – Symphony No 2 in C, Op 61

Duo Recital by Rémi Geniet & Aylen Pritchin

27 Sep 2022 (Tuesday) 8pm
HK City Hall Concert Hall
$400, $260, $150

Piano: Rémi Geniet
Violin: Aylen Pritchin

Programme
Mozart – Sonata for Piano & Violin No 24 in F, K376
Beethoven – Sonata for Piano & Violin No 7 in C minor, Op 30 No 2
Ravel – Valses Nobles et Sentimentales
Richard Strauss – Sonata for Violin & Piano in E-flat, Op 18

Half-price tickets available for full-time students, senior citizens, people with disabilities and their minder, and Comprehensive Social Security Assistance recipients
10% discount for group bookings of 4 or more standard tickets
Get a 20% off discount when you purchase full-price tickets to any two of the following programmes:
Suitable for 6 years old or above
Tickets at URBTIX
Tickets online at POPTICKET

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Yip Wing-sie Music Director Emeritus/Conductor

A highly respected and influential figure in Asia’s orchestral music scene, Yip Wing-sie shifted from being the Music Director of Hong Kong Sinfonietta – a position which she had held since 2002 – to Music Director Emeritus in May 2020. Other positions she had previously held include Principal Conductor and later Music Director of Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra and Resident Conductor of Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

Winner of the First Prize as well as “Lyre d’Or” in the 35th Concours International de Jeunes Chefs d’Orchestre de Besançon, France in 1985 and a prizewinner in the 8th Tokyo International Conducting Competition in 1988, Yip is in great demand as a guest conductor in Asia. Orchestras she has conducted include the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of China, China National Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Osaka Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo Mozart Players, the symphony orchestras of Sapporo, Yomiuri, Taiwan, Tasmania, Melbourne and Queensland as well as the Auckland Philharmonia of New Zealand. In Europe, Yip’s engagements have included concerts with the Orchestre National du Capitol de Toulouse and the Chambre Orchestre de Besançon in France, Warsaw Philharmonic in Poland, Spain’s Tenerife Symphony Orchestra and the Czech State Orchestra of Košice. She has also conducted at prestigious venues and festivals such as the Vienna Musikverein (Grossersaal), Beijing Music Festival, Fukuoka’s Asian Month Festival in Japan, Hong Kong Arts Festival and Macao International Music Festival. Yip has collaborated with such renowned artists as Augustin Dumay, Fou Ts’ong, Shlomo Mintz, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman. Operas she has conducted include Guo Wen-jin’s Poet Li Bai and the world premières of Pierangelo Valtinoni’s opera for children Alice in Wonderland, and La Peintre with Taiwan Philharmonic.

As Music Director of Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Yip has taken the orchestra on tour in recent years to France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Lithuania, Canada, the USA, Japan, Korea, Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, and in South America in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

Born in Guangzhou and brought up in Hong Kong, Yip graduated from the Royal College of Music in London and the Indiana University at Bloomington, USA, where she obtained her Master’s Degree in violin performance and conducting. As the winner of the Koussevitsky Scholarship and the Seiji Ozawa Fellowship Award, Yip also attended the conducting seminar and fellowship programmes at the Tanglewood Music Center. Her mentors included great maestros such as Norman Del Mar, Leonard Bernstein, Seiji Ozawa, Gustav Meier and David Atherton.

Accolades Yip has received internationally include “Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite” bestowed by the French Government (2015), “Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the Ministry of Culture and Communication of France, Fellow of the Royal College of Music (FRCM), and she was also named the Ong Teng Cheong Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore. In Hong Kong, she was awarded “Hong Kong Women of Excellence in the Six Arts Award” by the Hong Kong Federation of Women and the Bronze Bauhinia Star (BBS) by the Hong Kong Government, and was University Artist at The University of Hong Kong (2011- 2012).

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Joshua Tan Conductor

Second Prize-winner of the 2008 Dimitri Mitropoulos International Competition, Singaporean conductor Joshua Tan’s rise to prominence on the international scene has been marked by successful débuts at Carnegie Hall, Philharmonie Berlin, Mariinsky Hall and Bunkamura.

A graduate of The Juilliard School and the Eastman School of Music with High Distinction, Tan was an awardee of numerous scholarships and awards, such as the Singapore Young Artist Award, Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation Award, NAC-Shell Scholarship, and the SSO/MOE Scholarship.

Tan has conducted orchestras all around the world including the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, Okayama Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Taipei Symphony Orchestra, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Evergreen Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, China Philharmonic Orchestra and Julliard Orchestra. He has studied with various eminent conductors such as James DePreist, Charles Dutoit, David Zinman and Kurt Masur, and worked with Michael Tilson Thomas, Ingo Metzmacher and George Manahan, amongst others.

Known as a versatile conductor, Tan is at home with symphonic, operatic and ballet works. His substantial repertoire for opera includes La Traviata, Rigoletto, Der Fliegende Holländer, Lohengrin, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Madama Butterfly, Così Fan Tutte and Turandot, amongst others, and he has served as cover conductor for Christoph Eschenbach and Lorin Maazel. He is equally adept with music for ballet, film and multimedia. For the latter, his extensive repertoire includes Disney’s Fantasia, all of BBC’s Blue Planet Series, West Side Story, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, James Bond and more. The Singapore première of Bernstein’s Mass, under Tan’s baton, was voted “Best Classical Concert of the Year 2018” by The Straits Times, and for an unprecedented second year, his performance of the opera Don Pasquale won the same accolade in the subsequent year.

Tan is presently Principal Conductor of the Singapore National Youth Orchestra and Director of the Asia Virtuosi. He has served successful stints as Associate Conductor of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Resident Conductor of the China National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra, and as Principal Conductor of the Guiyang Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of his 2022/2023 season include débuts with the Melbourne and Gunma symphony orchestras, a new opera première in Hong Kong, return engagements to Hong Kong Philharmonic, the operas Das Rheingold and Die Fledermaus, and The Nutcracker, Don Quixote and Cinderella with the Singapore Ballet.

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Rémi Geniet Piano

Laureate of numerous international competitions, notably winner of Second Prize at the 2013 Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition at the age of 20 and the youngest prizewinner of the Bonn International Beethoven Competition, Rémi Geniet is fast establishing himself as one of the most prominent pianists of his generation, and was awarded First Prize at the prestigious Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York in 2015.

Geniet performs internationally with orchestras including the St Petersburg Philharmonic, State Symphony Orchestra Novaya Rossiya, Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Belgian National Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre National d’Auvergne and Orchestre National d’Île-de-France under conductors such as Marin Alsop, Edo de Waart, Emmanuel Krivine, Thomas Sanderling, Jérémie Rhorer, Robert Trevino, David Niemann, Roberto Forés Veses and Okko Kamu.

Invited to the most important French series and festivals, Geniet appears regularly at the Auditorium du Louvre, Piano aux Jacobins, Piano à Lyon, La Roque d’Anthéron International Piano Festival, Radio France, Montpellier Festival, La Folle Journée, La Grange de Meslay, Lille Piano(s) Festival etc, and opened both the “L’Âme du Piano” series at the Salle Gaveau and the “New Generation” series in the inaugural season of the Fondation Louis Vuitton to enormous critical acclaim.

Outside of France, Geniet has performed at Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall), Morgan Library, Munich Gasteig, NDR Hanover, Konzerthaus Berlin, Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, as well as in Vienna, Geneva, Ghent, Brussels, Germany and Poland. Amongst the many prestigious international festivals that invite him are the Verbier, Colmar, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Euriade, Casals, Montreal Bach and Interlaken Classics festivals. In 2016, he was invited to participate at Les Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad at the invitation of Renaud Capuçon, winning the “Prix André Hoffmann”.

A frequent guest artist in Asia, Geniet has performed in Suntory Hall with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, in China with the Suzhou Symphony Orchestra, as well as with the KBS Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Hiroshima and Gunma symphony orchestras and the Kansai Philharmonic. He has given recitals at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Osaka Izumi Hall, Saitama Arts Center, Yokohama Minato Mirai Hall, National Concert Hall in Taiwan and Kumho Art Hall in Seoul.

Geniet has recently given recitals as part of the Concerts de Monsieur Croche series at the Salle Gaveau, as well as in the Auditorium de Radio France for the 250th Anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. In concert, he performed with the Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle Europe under Nicolas Krauze, and the Armenian Symphony Orchestra at the Dubai Opera. In 2021/2022, he was reinvited to perform in Dubai with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, gave several performances with the Orchestre de Douai and Jean-Jacques Kantorow, and toured Korea with violinist Lim Ji-young. Geniet’s chamber music partners include Augustin Dumay, Alexandra Soumm, Aurélien Pascal, Raphaël Sévère and Daniel Lozakovich.

Having studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris with Brigitte Engerer and at the École Normale de Musique de Paris in the class of Rena Shereshevskaya, Geniet worked with Evgeni Koroliov in Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. He is currently studying Orchestral Conducting with Rüdiger Bohn. Geniet’s début all-Bach CD – which received a Diapason d’Or in 2015 – and his second release of four Beethoven sonatas were unanimously praised by the critics and both recorded on the Mirare label.

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Aylen Pritchin Violin

Russian violinist Aylen Pritchin has, in recent years, firmly established himself as one of the most interesting and versatile rising stars on the international concert stage. First Prize winner of the 2014 Long-Thibaud International Competition, he has also won prizes at the Wieniawski, Tchaikovsky, Sion-Valais, Kreisler and Oistrakh international violin competitions.

Pritchin’s career has led him to perform in Russia and abroad, including Armenia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Italy, Israel, Poland, Belgium, Bulgaria, Sweden, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Vietnam and Japan, in such prestigious venues as the Vienna Konzerthaus, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Stockholm Musikaliska, Salzburg Mozarteum, Tchaikovsky Conservatory Hall in Moscow and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. He has recently made solo appearances with orchestras such as the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, musicAeterna Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, National Philharmonic of Russia, Poznań Philharmonic, State Academic Symphony Orchestra “Evgeny Svetlanov”, Transylvania State Philharmonic, Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra i Pomeriggi Musicali and Orchestre National de Cannes, among others.

Pritchin has regularly been invited by such conductors as Teodor Currentzis, Maxim Emelyanychev, Cornelius Meister, Mihhail Gerts, Valentin Uryupin, Yuri Simonov, Dorian Wilson and Shlomo Mintz. He equally enjoys playing chamber music with artists such as Lukas Geniušas, Yury Favorin, Alexander Melnikov, Maxim Rysanov, Vladimir Mendelssohn and David Geringas.

In 2020/2021, Pritchin made his début with Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria. He also played with the Tchaikovsky Symphony, St Petersburg Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic and Lithuanian National Symphony orchestras. Highlights of the 2021/2022 season include débuts with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as a re-invitation to Taiwan Philharmonic. The 2022/2023 season will see his début appearance with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

In 2017, the Russian label Melodiya published Pritchin’s third album dedicated to Prokofiev´s works for violin and piano with Yury Favorin. Two other albums include Russian repertoire for violin and piano trio with Lukas Geniušas and Alexander Buzlov. In 2019, Ad Vitam Records released a violin solo CD with some of the most important works of the 20^th century, including the first ever edition of Tema con 8 Variazioni by Jean Françaix. In 2021, Pritchin and Maxim Emelyanychev’s album dedicated to the Brahms Violin Sonatas and recorded on period instruments was released on Aparté and received glowing reviews. Debussy – Hahn – Stravinsky, a new CD with Lukas Geniušas, will be released in 2022 on Mirare.

Born in St Petersburg, Pritchin studied with Elena Zaitseva in his hometown and with Eduard Grach at the prestigious Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. He is currently teaching at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp and Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf.

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