Japanese conductor to lead Dvorak concert in HCM City

The concert will open with the Cello Concerto in B Minor featuring cellist Ngo Hoang Quan, who is also the executive director of the Vietnam Connection Music Festival. Quan was born into a musical family in Hanoi in 1956, and began studying cello with his father, professor Ngo Hoang Duong, who was the first artist to teach cello at the Hanoi Conservatory of Music.

Internationally acclaimed conductor Honna Tetsuji will lead a concert featuring works by Czech composer Antonin Dvorak at the HCM City Opera House on Tuesday at 8pm. (Photo courtesy of HBSO)

He joined the Vietnam National Academy of Music in 1974, and the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in 1976. He was a soloist with the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra (VNSO) in Hanoi, the orchestra’s deputy director in 2001 and 2002, and director between 2003 and 2011. From 2011 to 2016, Quan was deputy director of the Vietnam Department of Performing Arts of Culture and Sports from 2011 to 2016.

He has performed in Russia, Germany, Japan, Macedonia, China, the Republic of Korea and Thailand. The second part of the night will feature Dvorak’s Symphony No 8 in G Major, featuring the HCM City Ballet Symphony Orchestra and Opera (HBSO).

Tetsuji has studied with conductors of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and the London Sinfonietta, an English contemporary chamber orchestra. He has won several top prizes at international competitions, including the Tokyo International Competition, Arturo Toscanini International Conductors’ Competition, and Budapest International Conductors’ Competition.

He has conducted numerous orchestras including La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra of Italy, the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra and VNSO. He was appointed music advisor and conductor of VNSO from 2001-2009, and the orchestra’s director in 2011.

The orchestra performed at New York Carnegie Hall and Boston Symphony Hall in the US in 2011; Teatro La Fenice Venice Opera House, Capella Paolina chapel and the Italian Presidential Palace in Italy in 2013; and the Grand Hall of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory and Grand Hall of the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic in 2014. The concert will begin at 8pm at 7 Lam Son Square in District 1.

Tickets are available at the Opera House.