Celebrating music and artists

The series “The Joy of Music Festival” is an integral part of the Chopin Society’s activities and acts as a linking event between our triennial Hong Kong International Piano Competitions. Since 2011 the Festivals have also acted as the focus of various musical events during the years of the Competitions themselves.

The Festivals have now been established as an important fixture in Hong Kong’s busy musical calendar with the first Festival having been held in 2006, and then followed by presentations in 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, by a special event in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

These were ten Festivals of high quality piano and guitar solo presentations, exciting and innovative performances by our resident string ensemble, the Logos Chamber Group, both on its own and with piano, guitar and winds, as well as individual cello and piano special events.

Key features of these presentations have been the performances of the first prize winners of our Hong Kong International Piano Competition held in 2005, 2008, 2011, 2016 and now scheduled for October 7 to 24, 2019.

The Festivals also featured members of the jury of the Competition as well as invited local and international artists and first prize winners of other major international music competitions.

Another key feature of all the Festivals has been the outreach activities in the form of free master classes in piano, guitar and voice as well as special lecture/demonstrations and presentations on aspects of music and of musical performances.

An important part of the Society’s activities has always been the showcasing and introduction of local young talented musicians to a wider audience. In this Festival, seven carefully selected local music students of a variety of instruments have been each asked to give a sample, so to speak, of their art. They will be each playing a short 7 to 10 minutes solo performance before the start of the main seven evening events of the Festival. The Society is most grateful to our artistic advisor Eleanor Wong, for selecting these music students and helping us to arrange for their performances. The line-up of performances to be presented this year is one of the most varied and exciting we have presented so far.

The following describe briefly what is in store for you.

1)	Monday 23rd October, at 8 pm, at the City Hall Concert Hall Cellist Pierre Doumenge and Pianist Pascal Roge will be joining forces to present an evening of cello and piano music by French composers.
2)	Tuesday 24th October, at 8 pm, at the City Hall Concert Hall Members of the Logos Ensemble: Michael Brooks-Reid (violin), Magnus Johnston (violin), Joel Hunter (viola) and Pierre Doumenge (cello), joined in by Andrea Pino (double bass) from City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong, Luka Okros (piano) and Jinsang Lee (piano) will be presenting three stunning pieces from the Chamber Music repertoire: Schubert’s Piano Quintet “The Trout”, Janáček’s String Quartet “The Kreutzer Sonata” and Piazzolla’s Piano trio: The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.
3)	Wednesday 25th October, at 8 pm, at the City Hall Concert Hall The four First Prize Winners of our Hong Kong International Piano Competitions 2005 (Ilya Rashkovskiy), 2008 (Jinsang Lee), 2011 (Giuseppe Andaloro) and 2016 (Luka Okros), each one sitting at a piano on the stage, will be taking turns to cascade a set of Preludes and Etudes by Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Faure, Ligeti, Liszt, Messiaen, Rachmaninov, Scriabin & Shostakovich.
4)	Thursday 26th October, at 8 pm, at the City Hall Concert Hall Continuing with our Winners Series, we are presenting a solo piano recital by Andrew Tyson, first prize winner of the 2015 Géza Anda International Piano Competition.
5)	Friday 27th October, at 8 pm, at the City Hall Concert Hall The Joy of Music Festival Orchestra, formed by musicians from City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong and the Logos Quartet together with pianists Ilya Rashkovskiy, Jinsang Lee, Giuseppe Andaloro and Luka Okros, under the baton of Maestro José Serebrier, will be performing five J.S. Bach’s concertos: one for one piano, two for two pianos, one for three pianos and one for four pianos.
6)	Saturday 28th October, at 8 pm, at the City Hall Concert Hall World renowned guitarist Alvaro Pierri in his yearly presentation in Hong Kong will be opening The Joy of Guitar Festival with this amazing programme, joining forces with: Michael Brooks-Reid (violin) in Paganini’s Sonata Concertata for Guitar and Violin, Giuseppe Andaloro (piano) in Giuliani/Moscheles’ Grand Duo Concertant and the Joy of Music Festival Orchestra, which will be performing Serebrier’s Adagio before performing the Manuel Ponce’s Concierto del Sur for Guitar and Orchestra, conducted by Maestro José Serebrier.
7)	Sunday 29th October, at 8 pm, at the City Hall Concert Hall In the First Part of this unique programme, Pascal Roge will be giving a solo piano recital and in the Second Part, he will be accompanying at the piano the Met Opera Soprano Carole Farley, in a presentation of the one-act opera La Voix Humaine, by Francis Poulenc.

THE JOY OF GUITAR FESTIVAL
Kicking off with the concert to be presented on Saturday 28th October at the City Hall Concert Hall, the Joy of Guitar Festival will continue with four days of a guitar fest, to take place at the Hong Kong City Hall Recital Hall, High Block, 8th Floor. Prof. Pierri will be playing host to distinguished master guitarists, each delivering lectures/demonstrations, followed by their master classes in the mornings of these four days. In the afternoons of each one of these days, Alvaro Pierri will be delivering lectures/demonstrations on the composers he will have featured in his recital on the 28th Oct. followed by his master classes on each day. Kenneth Kwan, as usual, will be providing a simultaneous translation into Chinese.

PIANO MASTER CLASSES
Wednesday 25th October
10:00 am to 13:00
Piano Master classes by Pascal Roge - at MEGABOX

Saturday 28th October
9:30 to 11:30 am
Piano Master classes by Jinsang Lee - at MEGABOX
11:30 am to 13:30
Piano Master classes by Ilya Rashkovskiy - at MEGABOX

Sunday 29th October
9:30 to 11:30 am
Piano Master classes by Giuseppe Andaloro - at MEGABOX
11:30 am to 13:30
Piano Master classes by Luka Okros - at MEGABOX

VOCAL MASTER CLASSES
Tuesday 24th October
10:00 am to 13:00
Vocal Master classes by Carole Farley - HK City Hall Concert Hall

A SPECIAL PRESENTATION
The three special presentations will take place at the HK City Hall Recital Hall, High Block, 8th Floor, as follows:

Sunday 29th October - 17:30
	A presentation by Andrew Walter, remastering engineer at Abbey Road Studios, on the recording of classical and pop music.
Monday 30th October - 19:00
	REBETIKA AND BOUZOUKI: The Greek urban folk music and its stringed instrument. Introduced by Nikos Mitrogiannopoulos, author, film producer and researcher on Greek folk music, the presentation will be illustrated by a documentary film as well as a demonstration of the playing of Rebetika string instruments.
Tuesday 31st October - 19:00
	A recital by Greek musicians Dimitris Lappas and Danis Koumartzis, playing the stringed instruments Bouzouki and Baglama

The Society welcomes all of you to this Festival and, as always, extends a heartfelt “Thank You” to our sponsors (listed separately in this leaflet) whose generosity has made this series of events possible.

Enjoy !