Prison Yard Festival: Music from within

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Having showcased the unique and intimate atmosphere which can be conjured by the dramatically walled Prison Yard during 2019’s Projekt Berlin, Tai Kwun unveils a new Prison Yard Festival: Music from within, stretching from 30th November to 10th December 2022. For 11 days, Tai Kwun’s Prison Yard will be transformed into a performance space with a magical atmosphere not found anywhere else in the city, a natural home for music to take one on a heartwarming and soul-searching journey. Musicophiles are invited to find solace inside the festival, as the healing power of music liberates us from feelings of isolation, reminding the city of the joy it feels when we are all reunited.

Prison Yard Festival: Music from within brings together like-minded musicians, ensembles of fine instrumentalists, composers, performers, and, of course, audiences to create and share music in the unique and intimate setting of the Prison Yard. 6 broad- ranging performances will be presented. Amongst them, the unmissable highlight is the long-awaited Asian debut of Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński with the fine Italian ensemble il Pomo d’Oro as the Festival’s finale.

True to its title, Music from within begins indoors, in the JC Cube. And true to its location overlooking the Prison Yard, the festival opens with LENK Quartet performing music written “on the inside”. French composer Olivier Messiaen was a prisoner in a German prisoner-of-war camp in Poland in 1940 and composed Quartet for the End of Time for himself and three fine musicians who were among the other POWs in the camp. Through his extraordinary imagination, Messiaen led his ensemble, and his audience, in an escape from the confines of prison, flying above the material world in cosmic freedom. “Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension.”

The monumental Goldberg Variations are heard in a new light when pianist Rachel Cheung and lighting designer Amy Chan collaborate to realise Bach’s great keyboard composition from 1741 through a distinctly 21st-century lens.

Music emerges from within as the outdoor stage of the Prison Yard hosts a series of highly atmospheric evening concerts, including two chamber concerts by some of the finest musicians from the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. Revered Hong Kong pianist Nancy Loo will perform Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata under the December full moon.

The Prison Yard Festival will close with the unstoppable energy of baroque ensemble il Pomo d’Oro with the stellar Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński, making his Asian debut with two nights of dazzling virtuosity from the 17th and 18th centuries. Orliński is known as one of the world’s leading singers, triumphing on stage, in concert, and on recording, with sold-out concerts and recitals throughout Europe and the United States.