When Super Typhoon Saola struck Hong Kong in summer 2023, there were inevitably those that celebrated time off work, those who mourned missed weekend social engagements, and those that were deeply inconvenienced. But few people might have felt the heartbreak of Charles Kwong, the Hong Kong composer who was looking forward to the world premiere of his first concerto, for piano and orchestra. It was a double blow for the 39-year-old talent, nature’s voice growling again after three years of Covid-era cancellations, and this time making it highly likely that his longest, most ambitious piece to date may never be performed in front of an audience.
“Actually, I was rather calm at that moment,” insists Kwong, who instead channelled his inner zen and enjoyed the opportunity to hear his work performed live in rehearsal, as it slowly became clear the T8 signal would be called early the following morning: September 1, 2023, the date set for the premiere. “All I was thinking about was the piece, and somehow I was in this state of fascination – these ideas that had been in my mind for two or three years, that finally I could hear performed live with my own ears.”
Thankfully, the rest of us will finally get to hear what he did on that ominous, storm-clouded afternoon, with Kwong’s piano concerto finally getting its premiere, performed as intended by its commissioning orchestra Hong Kong Sinfonietta (HKS) and soloist Colleen Lee at Hong Kong City Hall, almost 20 months later on April 26, 2025. It bears just one revision – the new title Hereafters, in honour of its surprise second life. “So I tried to kind of commemorate this coming back of a piece that was cancelled by the typhoon – the mark of a certain event, and then what follows after,” he explains. “It’s abstract enough – not too concrete. It won’t mould people’s expectations of the piece.”
Atmospheric, impressionistic and distinctly modern, Hereafters is an especially bold work from one of the city’s brightest and most prolific compositional talents, and marks the culmination of a more than decade-long relationship: Kwong served as HKS artist associate from 2020-22, and has previously received nine commissions from the orchestra, more than any other composer (notably the city’s Chan Hing-yan, Ng Cheuk-yin and Daniel Lo Ting-cheung have also been extensively performed by HKS).
Running 24 minutes, Hereafters isn’t just Kwong’s biggest undertaking – it’s among the most prominent showcases given to any 21st century composer by HKS for the 2025-26 season. Indeed, Hong Kong’s “second” orchestra should be celebrated for its ongoing work promoting local artists, with forthcoming premieres from Hong Kong composers Jing Wang (on October 25) and So Ho-chi (November 8), plus a new chamber arrangement of Rachamninov’s classic Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Anna Lo (July 12), the newly appointed HKS artist associate for 2025-26.
Rehearsal for Charles Kwong’s Piano Concerto Hereafters just before Typhoon Saola struck Hong Kong in summer 2023
Fighting with form
By penning a work in the traditional concerto form, Kwong deliberately and knowingly engages with both its technical limitations, and the classical music world’s suffocating weight of tradition. Defined by a designated soloist accompanied by an orchestral ensemble, the concerto’s conception can be traced back to the late 16th century and found greatest popularity 300 years later, but arguably has little relevance in the realm of contemporary composition, where other pervading strictures of structure, melody and harmony have been abruptly dismantled.
Why, then, would a 21st century composer even choose to write in such a necessarily antiquated, restrictive, form? “That’s the question that I asked myself a lot since the beginning of the process,” says Kwong. “I never thought about writing a symphony, or an opera. But the concerto is somehow special because to me, and as a form, it’s still very much relevant. So I also asked myself, why is this the case? What difference does this one single musician make, what does he or she bring to an orchestra of fifty or a hundred people? Why does one person change this whole presentation, and what does that convey to the audience somehow? “So I think that there’s a lot to discover and explore in that context, not only sonically, but conceptually,” he replies.
Inspired by the writings of American composer Charles Rosen, Kwong saw the conundrum of the concerto not as merely a musical summit to ascend, but a philosophical issue to wrestle with. In the Romantic era — the early half of the 19th century when Mozart and Beethoven reigned supreme — many imagined in the concerto form the symbolism of an individual in contest and competition with collective society. “I really just focused on how these concepts have changed since then,” says Kwong. “Like, what [now] do we see as the society and what do we see as an individual? With all these things like social media and the very fast speed of information, you can’t really tell the boundary of what shapes the individual mind and what shapes the collective mind.”
Keying it up
When it came time to mount that summit, there was only ever one instrument Kwong had in mind. Interestingly, while concertos are still generally viewed as a conversation — or even duel — between orchestra and soloist, Kwong conceived of the piano part almost in its entirety before adding orchestration; the effect is of the piano spooling out an interior monologue, while the orchestra exerts itself as the exterior world, disrupting the inner flow of consciousness with meteorological intrusions of swelling strings and percussive storm clouds.
There’s a reason for this. Kwong trained as a classical clarinettist, yet it was jazz pianist Keith Jarrett who sparked the initial, creative flames igniting Hereafters. While studying for his PhD in London, Kwong was in the audience at Royal Festival Hall on December 1, 2008, the night Jarrett performed one of his famed solo piano improvisations – a performance so powerful it would later make up two-thirds of the subsequent Paris / London: Testament live album. “It was one of the most fascinating moments in my life, in my musical journey,” remembers Kwong of the concert.
The force and tone of Jarrett’s restless melodic searching, ambiguous note clusters and hurried runs can be detected in Hereafters’ probing piano part. Kwong’s tribute took on greater poignancy when it emerged in 2020 that Jarrett had retired from the stage following two debilitating strokes. In a moment of serendipity, Hereafters arrives as its elusive inspiration enjoys an unlikely pop culture moment, with 2025 welcoming two imminent movies – the fictionalised Köln 75 and documentary Lost in Köln – celebrating the 50th anniversary of bestselling The Köln Concert album which introduced the pianist’s patented, off-the-cuff approach to the world.
Translating the spirit of such idiosyncratic improvisations into a strict score naturally makes as many demands on the musician as the composer. Before writing a note of music, Kwong knew that Colleen Lee — a longterm collaborator and earlier HKS artist associate, 2010-11 — would be his soloist. And she was not given an easy job. “No, I mean, after all, it’s a concerto – it should not be too easy,” reasons Kwong, who frequently checked in with the pianist throughout the compositional process to ensure his piece was even playable. “I mean, she told me some of the passages would be quite challenging, that that would take her time to practise. But she always said, ‘Yeah, it’s okay. I will be able to manage it. Let’s try.’ So I nearly didn’t have to change anything since the first draft for the piano part. “So I really thank Colleen for her dedication and commitment to these challenging tasks.”
Environmental factors
Kwong’s meditations on music and philosophy are clear-sighted, well-reasoned and refreshingly unambiguous, the result of decades juggling the demands of a contemporary composer in an industry so suffocatingly entrenched in, enchanted by and indentured to the past.
Kwong was born and raised in Hong Kong, but studied at King’s College London and the University of York, and accepts he is working in a historically European idiom. He now divides his time between his hometown and Zurich, Switzerland, and his next big orchestral commission is a shorter piece commemorating the centenary of great French postwar composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, to be premiered at the Lucerne Festival this summer.
Yet it’s evident the cosmopolitan metropolis of Hong Kong has left its mark on Kwong’s life and work. “I think what makes us, as Hong Kong artists, is how we see the topic of roots and tradition, right?” he muses. “We are basically growing up in this situation of complexity, of a hybridity of different traditions, different values, different norms.
“When I ask myself this question, I imagine these trees in Hong Kong – you see them growing on walls in Kennedy Town or in Mid-Levels. The image I’m seeing is the roots [representing] us Hong Kong artists. Because we are quite a new city, basically, our history only traces back to the 19th century, but I think how these trees grow around this urban environment, is how we become alive [as artists] – how we grow around [obstacles] and somehow find our nutrition and our way of absorbing the different things that are around us.”
Hereafters will receive its world premiere from the Hong Kong Sinfonietta at Hong Kong City Hall on April 26 at 20:00. Click here for tickets and more information.