[INTERVIEW] SPO's Associate Conductor Wilson Ng recounts musical journey from flutist to conductor

Wilson Ng has been serving as the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra's associate conductor since January. Courtesy of Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra

By Anna J. Park

Since Wilson Ng assumed the role of associate conductor at the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO) in January, he has led about seven concerts and built favorable reputations inside and outside the orchestra.

Ng, 29, was selected from more than 100 contenders for the position, in a unanimous decision by the selection committee.

During a recent interview with The Korea Times, the young maestro from Hong Kong said he is very much enjoying and grateful for his job at the Seoul Philharmonic.

"It is really a dream come true," Ng said. "You know, I do conduct sometimes abroad. I have some guest conducting, but I must admit that I am always looking forward to coming back with this orchestra. This really is an orchestra of world class," he said.

"When you have the orchestra of this level, an orchestra without limits, I really can think about what I should do to make good use of these beautiful people and musicians for the audience. And I must say I learned a lot, because they are reacting so well and I have been training myself what works with the orchestra and what doesn't, what gesture, or how I should present one phrase. When they react, I can finally know what I do is right or wrong. So this is the biggest lesson that I can learn, and every concert is actually is a very valuable lesson."

Ng started his music lessons with the flute, aged 11. Always a precocious, mature boy for his age, he realized being a musician met his three main criteria of ideal work.

"When I was very young, I thought about three things: what I do is beneficial to society; what I do is what I am good at; and if it's going to be really my long-term thing that I should ― and I found music was one of them that I can sustain," he said.

At age 16, he got the opportunity to study at the Paris Conservatoire, where he graduated with first prize. He continued to study at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne in Switzerland on a full scholarship. In his early 20s, he achieved his childhood dream of having a solo recital at the Hong Kong Arts Festival.

"This dream came pretty early, when I was 23," Ng said. "I got the opportunity to present my own recital. It was amazing, but after the recital it was a strange feeling. I didn't play badly, but I was so depressed. I was depressed almost a month. The audience was happy, everything went well, but I was just very, very unhappy. So at that point, I knew this is not my life that I want it to be, and thought maybe, then, life was leading me to another way."

Ng said that even when he was young he was more conductor material than flute soloist, but back then he didn't know conducting could be his career.

"I was fascinated by symphonic music; I loved reading the full score since I was very young, but I didn't know conducting was an option," he said. "I was always fascinated by the deepness of music, rather than the excitement of music. Of course, I do get excited with music, but the gravity of music was very fascinating. The flute is kind of always in a character of a bird or a virtuoso in an orchestra, so I kind of missed repertoires of gravity and of deepness. You know, I want to have the ability of molding a bigger energy," he said.

Realizing his true passion for conducting, he started his own orchestra some five years ago, when he was 24.

"The very beginning was a chaos. I just asked my friends, basically, because I played not so badly, so I had some good musician friends around me, fortunately. So I just asked them. Some of my friends really took their time for me to rehearse. I really thank them."

That's how the Hong Kong-based Gustav Mahler Orchestra started, with Ng its founder, artistic director and chief conductor, until now.

The orchestra has grown from a group of non-paid musician friends to a fully paid orchestra. Ng has also built his conducting skills. He received the Aspen Music Festival James Conlon Conductor Prize 2016, and was second-prize winner at the Sir Georg Solti International Conductors' Competition in 2017.

His next schedule of conducting the Seoul Phil will be on Aug. 17 with pianist Sunwoo Yekwon at the Gyechon Village Classical Music Street Festival in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province; on Sept. 21, he will conduct a special concert marking the 100th Korean National Sports Festival at an outdoor concert venue near the Seoul Botanic Park. Courtesy of Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra

After making a successful transformation from flute performer to conductor, he said he finally feels at home.

"I am someone who believes that characters define everyone. I think the biggest difference from being a flutist to a conductor is that my character is so suitable to be a conductor. When I was a flutist, I was quite trouble in the orchestra, because I had a lot of opinions; I read the full score, I knew exactly which colleagues were playing, what a conductor should be doing. You can imagine I must have a lot of, sometimes, anger even," he said smiling.

"When I became a conductor, I felt like at home. It's not good or bad, it's the right character and right thing to do. Also I love people, I love communicating with people, so for me it is a gift to be a conductor, because the job actually is to communicate, either with hands or with your smile or what you say. I truly believe that conducting is about encouraging, making people around you even more powerful than they thought. This is what conducting is about, I think."

The young maestro, who has a particular fondness for Mahler, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky, said it is a real joy to find the truth about each repertoire through musical scores.

"You know, conducting is about finding the truth of the music," the conductor said. "I think all music is landscape. And there's no right or wrong in how to see it, no interpretation. But there's a truth; which part of the landscape are you describing to the audience? It's like, if there's a tree, how would you describe it? What do you think about it, how does it stand, or how long the tree has been here. There's so much truth that we can take from the score, and that's why we spend time on it," he said.

"For short-term goals, it has to do with the Seoul Phil. I really want to treasure every opportunity to improve myself and also to give great concerts. Every concert, I have a stronger relationship with the orchestra, and I want to build even stronger bonds and connections with the orchestra. For me it's very important."

Ultimately, Ng also said he wishes to find a key to unlock each great symphony, making it sound like "one breath and one big picture."

"I wish I had this key for every symphony, this would be my ultimate goal. I'd like to share it with our audiences," the conductor said.

Courtesy of Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.