By Do Je-hae
The Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO) and its music director Chung Myung-whun will embark on a new tour of Japan next week, the first of their several overseas tours this year.
The nation’s oldest symphony orchestra will play two concerts in Tokyo and Fukuoka on Jan. 16 and 18, respectively. The program will feature Mahler’s first symphony the “Titan” as well as Debussy’s “La Mer.”
The tour takes place after today’s release of the SPO’s second recording for Deustche Grammophon (DG) in Japan, containing the above-mentioned symphony and a key work in Chung’s conducting career within and outside Korea.
The SPO has been a regular presence in Japan, where their music director has had a lengthy association with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra since 2001 as its special artistic advisor.
Chung is one of the most popular conductors in Japan and last year played a tribute concert for the victims of the earthquake in Japan in March.
“With our Mahler Series in 2001 and the European tour and recording projects, the SPO’s ensemble has become more refined. The upcoming Japan tour will be an occasion to spread our sound in Asia’s most mature classical music market,” an official with the SPO said in a statement. “The orchestra displayed solid musicality during the 2011 tour in Tokyo, Osaka and Doyama. In particular, the concert at the Tokyo Santory Hall on May 10 was sold out.”
When Chung was appointed to his current Seoul post in 2005, one of his primary goals was to elevate SPO’s performance level and international reputation similar to top orchestras in Japan, a country with a number of renowned ensembles like the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Saito Kinen Festival Orchestra.
To that end, overseas tours have played a central part in the growth of the SPO, musically and spiritually.
The upcoming Japan tour also coincides with the beginning of the 58-year-old conductor’s third term with the SPO, which will expire in 2015.
His most important achievements so far have been to facilitate more overseas engagements and the DG recording contract, in addition to taxing projects like the Mahler Series that have particularly elevated the level of the orchestra’s brass section.
Furthermore, the SPO will present a program of French and Russian works during a U.S. tour in April in Seattle, Santa Barbara and the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, where Chung launched his conducting career in 1979 as assistant to the Italian maestro Carlo Maria Giulini (1914-2005).
The orchestra was invited to some of Europe’s most respected musical festivals in 2011, including the Edinburgh International Festival, the Musikfest Bremen and the Robeco Summer Series at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, home to the prestigious Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
An exclusive DG artist since the early 1990s, Chung has recorded with some of the top orchestras in the world from Berlin, Amsterdam and Vienna, and has worked as the musical director of major French and Italian orchestras and opera houses.
After returning from Japan, next month, Chung will embark on an Asian tour with Royal Concertgebouw stopping in Seoul for two concerts on Feb. 21-22 at Seoul Arts Center.