Wong Kah Chun is first Singaporean to conduct at BBC proms
Singaporean conductor Wong Kah Chun will be the first Singaporean to conduct at the BBC Proms, London's annual eight-week classical music festival. PHOTO: ANGIE KREMER
Wong Kah Chun is first Singaporean to conduct at BBC proms
SINGAPORE – Conductor Wong Kah Chun will be the first Singaporean to conduct at the BBC Proms, London's annual eight-week classical music festival.
As part of the season running from July 18 to Sept 13, Wong is taking up the baton for a rendition of Austrian composer Gustav Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony, or Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, at the Royal Albert Hall on Aug 2.
The 38-year-old interprets the choral symphony for 167-year-old, Manchester-based symphony orchestra The Halle. Norwegian Mari Eriksmoen will sing soprano, and Canadian Emily D'Angelo the mezzo-soprano; The Halle Choir and the Halle Youth Choir also supply voices for the mixed chorus.
Wong, who has been The Halle's principal conductor and artistic adviser since September 2024, says he is honoured and 'absolutely thrilled' to partake in one of the world's great celebrations of classical music.
The performance marks the finale of his first full season. He is officially appointed for five.
'To walk in the footsteps of my predecessors like Sir Mark Elder and Sir John Barbirolli – who also frequently conducted The Halle at the Proms in the same role – is both humbling and inspiring,' he tells The Straits Times.
'(The symphony) is a deeply moving work, and even more special to bring it to the Proms with the full Halle family – our orchestra, choir and youth choir.'
The five movements of Mahler's work, running up to 80 minutes, explore the afterlife with a view to transcendence, and are among the most popular pieces in orchestras' repertoire, with Wong expected to plug into their sombre tragedy.
In 2014, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra became the first Singaporean group to perform at the BBC Proms, showcasing a programme comprising a piano concerto by Chinese composer Zhou Long, a short overture by Russian composer Mikhail Glinka and Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff's hour-long Symphony No. 2 in E Minor.
Some members of the 5,500-strong audience flew a Singapore flag. Chinese-American Lan Shui, a Singapore permanent resident who was then the orchestra's music director, conducted despite feeling under the weather.
When he gave up the post to spend more time in Denmark with his wife and two sons in 2019, Lan, too, conducted the SSO in a performance of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony, choosing it for its message of farewell and new beginnings.
Wong's career took off after he won the first prize at the Gustav Mahler Conducting competition in 2016. Since then, he has been appointed chief conductor to various high-profile orchestras including Germany's Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.
He was a National Arts Council (NAC) scholar, receiving a Master of Music in Orchestral/Opera Conducting from the Hanns-Eisler Musikhochschule in Berlin, and was a recipient of NAC's Young Artist Award in 2017.
Tickets range from £15 (S$26) to £66. For more information, go to https://str.sg/xpbh
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