Hong Kong Sinfonietta‘s Music Director Christoph Poppen will conduct two concerts on 29 June and 6 July at the Hong Kong City Hall: A Clarinet Rhapsody with Portuguese clarinettist Horácio Ferreira, and James Cuddeford – To The Memory of An Angel with violinist and Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s Concertmaster James Cuddeford.

We had the chance to discover with Christoph Poppen what happens behind the scenes, and to learn more about the role of conductor and music director of an orchestra like Hong Kong Sinfonietta. Poppen also opened up about the musicians Horácio Ferreira and James Cuddeford, and the two upcoming concerts.

Conductor, soloist, chamber musician and pedagogue, Christoph Poppen was Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s Principal Guest Conductor between 2015 and 2023, before becoming their Music Director in 2023.

Christoph Poppen

The role of the conductor can be vague for neophytes, who might just see someone moving their hands in front of the musicians during the concerts. But it all starts when the conductor rehearses with the orchestra, trying to balance his artistic vision with orchestral needs.

“Hong Kong Sinfonietta is an orchestra where the first rehearsal starts already on a high level because everyone is so well-prepared. At the first orchestra rehearsal, the conductor tries to shape the general form of the piece, to fix the tempo, the dynamics, the balance, before going into polishing very small details with every player in the orchestra,” Poppen explains. Like working in a garden, he often says!

For him, “conducting is leadership, and like every leadership, it has many different levels of responsibility. Generally, the most important thing is to develop a vision of how it should sound at the end, and then guiding all the musicians with all their different instruments through the process of realising it”.

Christoph Poppen and Hong Kong Sinfonietta

As the Music Director of Hong Kong Sinfonietta since 2023, Poppen thinks that “the Music Director takes responsibility not only for his or her own concerts, but for the complete season and for the future development of the orchestra. In close collaboration with the management, it is about choosing the soloists, the guest conductors, and the programmes. We try to offer our Hong Kong audience a wide and colourful selection of musical styles, keeping in mind the balance of the whole season, and trying to give every single programme a meaning. Since every music has an impact on the listener, we are trying to combine the different works of the programme in a very conscious way”.

Poppen is looking forward to his two concerts with the Portuguese clarinet rising star Horácio Ferreira, and Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s very own Concertmaster James Cuddeford.

“A Clarinet Rhapsody (29 June) is built around a new work by the American composer Geoffrey Gordon which he called Fumée. He combined it with his new orchestration of the famous Debussy First Rhapsody for clarinet, and we are adding the wonderful Debussy Prélude à L’Après-midi d’un Faune for orchestra to the programme. In the second part of the concert, Mozart’s famous G Minor Symphony will be a contrast to the French style music, but at the same time sharing in a different way the effortless and floating character of the music,” he explains.

Horacio Ferreira

“James Cuddeford – To the Memory of an Angel (6 July) features three great German “B” composers, Beethoven, Berg, and Brahms. Beethoven’s strong, dark Coriolan Overture prepares us for Alban Berg’s violin Concerto, which is one of the greatest and most unique compositions of the 20th century, dedicated to the memory of a girl who lost her life at the age of 18,” he added. For Poppen, it is one of the most powerful and touching concertos ever.

Poppen also explains that Arnold Schoenberg, the teacher of Alban Berg, orchestrated one of the most beautiful chamber music works by Johannes Brahms, the Piano Quartet in G minor in such a glorious way that he somehow created a fifth Brahms Symphony. The music is exclusively by Brahms, only the orchestration is by Schoenberg. Poppen and Hong Kong Sinfonietta will perform this gorgeous arrangement at the concert.

Poppen knows Horácio Ferreira and James Cuddeford very well, he collaborated with them for years. Horácio Ferreira is the Artistic Advisor of the Marvão International Music Festival, founded by Poppen in Portugal in 2014. While James Cuddeford has been Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s Concertmaster since 2011.

Horacio Ferreira, Christoph Poppen and HKS at Marvao International Music Festival 2023

“Horácio Ferreira is one of the leading clarinet players of his generation and one of the most prominent Portuguese musicians. I work with him regularly at the Marvão Festival in Portugal, and I adore his sensitive and colourful way of playing,” Poppen says.

Talking about James Cuddeford, Poppen says “he is an unusually versatile musician. Besides his job as an orchestra leader, he is working as a chamber musician, as a soloist, and even as a composer. We both share the love for the amazing violin concerto by Alban Berg, and I am tremendously looking forward to performing this fantastic work with him”.

Finally, we also got a chance to discuss with James Cuddeford about Berg’s Violin Concerto which he last performed with Hong Kong Sinfonietta 12 years ago.

James Cuddeford

“Already 12 years, amazing! Well, I first played the piece as a 16 year-old, so I have been living with this concerto for quite a long time! I clearly remember having lessons with Yehudi Menuhin on it when I was first learning it. One interesting thing about returning to a piece after a gap of a few years is seeing what things you change from – both physical things (like fingerings) and interpretive (such as the musical flow and tempo). The Berg is one of the greatest concertos for any instrument from the 20th century, so one has to immerse oneself in it on many levels. It is a particularly dramatic and emotional work – it is kind of a double requiem for an 18 year old girl as well as himself – so there is not let up for the violinist from beginning to end,” Cuddeford explains with humility.

More details on the concerts can be found here:

A Clarinet Rhapsody – 29 June at Hong Kong City Hall – Booking here

James Cuddeford – To The Memory of An Angel – 6 July at Hong Kong City Hall – Booking here

To know more about Christoph Poppen, you can read our Cultural Portrait here.