Orchestra School

This is our only workshop that involves a professional orchestra, also a rare and sought-after opportunity world-wide! Conducting students no longer have to make costly trips to other countries/ cities for masterclasses to conduct a professional orchestra. This summer Pro Arte proudly presents our Conducting Workshops and Showcase 2023.  We now offer you an opportunity to work with a chamber orchestra of 30 professional musicians in the workshops. The application is open for Active Participants and Auditors.

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The Active Participants will conduct on podium on a rotating basis under the tutelage of the instructor, our Music Director Ho-man Choi, in the 12-session Conducting Workshops. Each Active Participant will have a minimum of 60 minutes podium time with a pianist, 60 minutes podium time with a piano quintet (piano and string quartet) and 60 minutes podium time with a lab chamber orchestra of 30 professional musicians. A personalized video footage of each Active Participant’s last orchestra session (in the workshop) will be recorded into an Online Showcase which will be available on the Orchestra’s Youtube channel and Facebook.

 

The piano quintet sessions and the lab chamber orchestra sessions will be open to 30 Auditors/ Observers upon registration.

 

Please seize the opportunity to apply as soon as possible.

 

General Information

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Target Groups:

• Orchestra/ ensemble/ band directors

• Orchestra section/ part leaders

• Music teachers

• Orchestra/ ensemble/ band members

• Instrumentalists

• Music majors

• Musicians who aspire to be an instrumental conductor in the future

 

Instructor: Ho-man Choi

• Master of Arts degree from Cambridge University and Master of Music in instrumental conducting from the Indiana University School of Music (Double Masters)

• Former Resident Conductor of Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra

• an internationally recognized conducting teacher whose private students have been accepted into world-renowned conducting schools and notably to the Instrumental Conducting program at Indiana University School of Music in successive years, and Musicology Doctoral Program at Harvard University

• a faculty member at the Hong Kong Baptist University, teaching Instrumental and Choral Conducting

• co-hosted conducting workshops with Maestro Jahja Ling –Emmy-award winning conductor who holds the longest working relationship with the world-famous Cleveland Orchestra

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Number of Active Participants: 12

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The Active Participants will be given a chance to choose excerpts or complete works with

the instructor at the beginning of the course from the following:

Beethoven Symphonies 1, 2, 5, 7

Bizet: Symphony

Faure: Pavane

Haydn: Symphonies 94, 104

Kodaly: Dances of Galanta

Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night‘s Dream - Intermezzo, Nocturne, Scherzo

Mendelssohn: Symphony 4

Leopold Mozart: Toy Symphony

Mozart: Symphonies 36, 40

Prokofiev: Symphony 1

Rossini: Barber of Seville Overture, L’italiana in Algeri Overture

Saint-Seans: Suite op.49

Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony

Schubert: Symphony 5

Verdi: La Traviata Prelude to Act I, Prelude to Act III

Wagner: Siegfried Idyll, Tristan und Isolde Prelude to Act III

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Course Dates, Time and Venue:

4 Sessions with Piano

June 6, 2023 (Tue) 1900 – 2200 Ko Shan Theatre

June 20, 2023 (Tue) 1900 – 2200 Ko Shan Theatre

June 27, 2023 (Tue) 1900 – 2200 Ko Shan Theatre

July 6, 2023 (Thur) 1900 – 2200 Hong Kong Cultural Centre

 

4 Sessions with a Piano Quintet

July 13, 2023 (Thur) 1900 – 2200 Hong Kong Cultural Centre

July 27, 2023 (Thur) 1900 – 2200 Hong Kong Cultural Centre

July 31, 2023 (Mon) 1900 – 2200 Hong Kong Cultural Centre

August 3, 2023 (Thur) 1900 – 2200 Hong Kong Cultural Centre

 

4 Sessions with a lab Chamber Orchestra of 30 Musicians

August 5 (Sat) 1900 – 2200 Hong Kong Cultural Centre

August 9 (Wed) 1900 – 2200 Hong Kong Cultural Centre

August 10 (Thur) 1900 – 2200 Hong Kong Cultural Centre

August 12 (Sat) 1900 – 2200 Hong Kong Cultural Centre

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Each Active Participant will have a minimum of 60 minutes podium time with a pianist, 60 minutes podium time with a piano quintet and 60 minutes podium time with a lab chamber orchestra of 30 professional musicians. When the Active Participants are not conducting on the podium, they are required to observe the training of other Active Participants, thus learning from both sides of the podium.

 

The piano quintet sessions and the lab chamber orchestra sessions will be open to 30 Auditors/ Observers upon registration. However, auditors/observers will not be given any podium time.