Celebrating Aristo Sham:
World-Acclaimed Homegrown Pianist Returns to the HK Phil Stage

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: 
Dennis Wu
Director of Marketing 
Tel: (852) 2721 9035
Email: dennis.wu@hkphil.org 

Emily Hui
Media Relations and Communications Manager
Tel: (852) 2721 1585
Email: emily.hui@hkphil.org

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[4 March 2026, Hong Kong] The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) is thrilled to welcome the return of acclaimed Hong Kong pianist Aristo Sham on 18 March. Fresh from his triumph as the Gold Medalist and Audience Award winner of the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Sham returns to perform Rachmaninov’s fiery and youthful First Piano Concerto.

“Noble. That’s the adjective that kept coming to mind in Sham’s performance...”

—The Dallas Morning News

Sham began his formal training at The Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and quickly gained recognition. At the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, he found his breakthrough moment, following which critics showered him with praise. He was mentioned in more than 800 news articles, and his Cliburn performance videos were streamed two million times across 125 countries within just two months.

A familiar face to HK Phil audiences, Sham last appeared with the orchestra in 2022 in Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto no. 1 – one of the works he performed on his path to Cliburn victory – and first took the stage with the HK Phil at just 11, performing Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto in 2007.

Before Sham’s appearance, renowned American conductor David Robertson, acclaimed for bringing clarity to even the most complex scores, leads the evening with two symphonic works from different eras,connected with the masterly developed motives and textures. The concert begins with Sibelius’s Symphony no. 7 – a single movement lasting just half the length of the First, yet hailed as a consummate masterpiece.

The other masterpiece is John Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony. Doctor Atomicis about the creation of the first atomic bomb, Adams recomposed scenes from his three-hour stage score, and compressed them into a through-worked symphonic whole.

“Chow Sang Sang Proudly Sponsors: Celebrating Aristo Sham” will be held on 18 March 2026 (Wed) at 7:30PM at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall. Tickets priced at HK$880, $700, $520 and $380 have been sold out. For enquiries, please call +852 2721 2332 or visit hkphil.org.

Title Sponsor: Chow Sang Sang