At only 28, French prodigy of classical music Raphaël Sévère is coming back to the city, to open the new season of Hong Kong Sinfonietta. For this third collaboration with the orchestra, Sévère is sharing his excitement, his expectations, and, for the first time, a piece of music he composed specially for the occasion.

“I am very much looking forward coming back to Hong Kong, this time even more than before”, said Sévère. “It is a city – a place – that means a lot to me, as I have so many wonderful memories there.”

Raphaël Sévère – Credit Sylvain Picard

Raphaël Sévère will be performing in a series of three concerts this April, first with Hong Kong Sinfonietta and Music Director Emeritus Yip Wing-sie in Aaron Copland’s colourful Clarinet Concerto. He will then be joined by fellow friend, French violist Adrien La Marca, at a recital. The duo’s Double Act will culminate in the final concert, presenting three showstopping concertos with the orchestra.

Yip Wing-Sie conducting the Hong Kong Sinfonietta

“It is a great pleasure to be performing Copland’s concerto, which is a spectacular piece, written in a jazzy atmosphere but still very precise and virtuosic!”, notes Sévère. “It’s a music full of light and humour. We will then share a chamber music concert with Adrien La Marca and Colleen Lee, around a beautiful and romantic repertoire. To end in a ‘firework’, the concert I’m the most excited about is the Double Concertos! During this concert, we will perform Max Bruch’s Double Concerto and the world premiere of my work Phoenix! Bruch’s double concerto is a beautiful and yet a rare piece, we are so happy to play it for the first time with Adrien.”

Adrien La Marca

Together with Adrien La Marca and the orchestra, Sévère will then be premiering his own composition, Phoénix. The story of a rebirth, confronted first with darkness and death, echoes the collective experience lived during the pandemic.

“Of course, a lot of my own experience went in this work. In France we had first a hard lockdown of a few months and then a strange year of what we could call a “half – lockdown” without concerts or performances. During this time, we were confronted with death, sickness and fear, and it was hard to be creative in this heavy atmosphere. When everything slowly got back to normal, I started to write a lot of music, and the flow came very naturally. Like if I was pulling out all my feelings through music.”

Despite the dark and mysterious atmosphere of this new piece, the composer still carries a message of light and hope.

“The entire orchestra climbs to a very high pitch and ends on the same note that the piece begins with, an A, but transformed in a new colour. Hope comes with the fact that after a rebirth we live a new life, even if the Phoenix remains a Phoenix.”

Looking to the future, the young musician is very excited about concerts and encounters around the world, and to be able to develop more and more of his own compositions: “the inner journey that is composition brings so many questions and emotions, that it makes you a better musician as well as a better person after each delivery of a piece.”

GREAT CLARINET CONCERTOS: RAPHAËL SÉVÈRE PLAYS COPLAND – 15 April at 8pm

DOUBLE ACTS: HKS RECITAL SERIES: RAPHAËL SÉVÈRE & ADRIEN LA MARCA – 19 April at 8pm

DOUBLE ACTS: DOUBLE CONCERTOS! – 22 April at 8pm