The Rite of Spring

* Mendelssohn's Octet: Concertmaster John Harding, with The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Orchestral Fellows and HKAPA student

The Rite of Spring - a unique music project in collaboration with the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts

In 1910, shortly after completing the first of his ballet scores for Diaghilev - The Firebird - Stravinsky had a vision; “I saw in my imagination a solemn pagan rite: wise elders, seated in a circle, watching a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to propitiate the god of spring”. He decided to turn it into a ballet but, as he later confessed, he was initially unable to find a suitable way of writing down in conventional notation some of the ideas which came into his head. He asked Diaghilev to stage it and, with sets designed by Nicholas Roerich and choreography by Vaclav Nijinsky, the riot which erupted during its première did The Rite of Spring no long-term harm; within weeks Stravinsky’s score had established itself as one of the great orchestral showpieces of the 20th century.

Edo de Waart will lead a joint orchestra of HKPO professionals and students from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in The Rite of Spring, one of the most challenging works in the symphonic repertoire.