{"id":40459,"date":"2026-03-30T19:43:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=40459"},"modified":"2026-03-30T19:43:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:43:37","slug":"review-22-year-old-pianist-yunchan-lim-wows-the-hong-kong-arts-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=40459","title":{"rendered":"Review | 22-year-old pianist Yunchan Lim wows the Hong Kong Arts Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"


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You have to admire long-standing ensembles that still retain the spirit and sound that their original founders intended.<\/p>\n

The acclaimed Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) began its first Hong Kong Arts Festival (HKAF) concert on Saturday, March 28, fittingly enough, with something quintessentially British: Edward Elgar\u2019s Serenade for String Orchestra<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Positioned further back on stage than most groups appearing at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall, the ASMF projected breezy wafts of sound in the Serenade<\/em>\u2019s opening Allegro piacevole<\/em> that echoed sentiments of \u201cold English\u201d refinement and the true spirit of their late founder, conductor and violinist Neville Marriner.<\/p>\n

For the Serenade<\/em>, the well-oiled machine gave a reading that was clearly driven by the ensemble\u2019s dexterous concertmaster Zsolt-Tihamer Visontay.<\/p>\n

And as optically fluid as his direction was, Hong Kong-born guest conductor Wilson Ng was never going to rock the steady boat that is Marriner\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n

In Elgar\u2019s brief, meticulously-marked score, the ensemble happily presented the inherent charm of the twilight-hued piece on their own terms, and even when elements of routine crept in, their tender utterances of pure nostalgic sentiment in the central Larghetto<\/em> (slow movement) were warm and heartfelt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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You have to admire long-standing ensembles that still retain the spirit and sound that their original founders intended. The acclaimed Academy of St Martin in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[19320,4681,1901,3569,5231,6412,7889,28,19322,19321],"class_list":["post-40459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-22yearold","tag-arts","tag-festival","tag-hong","tag-kong","tag-lim","tag-pianist","tag-review","tag-wows","tag-yunchan","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}