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Evening musical delights celebrating 30 years of Amadeus Indonesia
This was a “revenge” event, as musical director and orchestra founder Grace Soedargo playfully called it. The more appropriate term, perhaps, is the settlement of a previous promise, as unwieldy as the phrase sounds. For the leisurely stroll through a gallery of musical treasures conducted this week by Henrik Hochschild from Leipzig, Germany, was payback for another event.
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German conductor Henrik Hochschild directs the Amadeus Symphony Orchestra during a concert in South Jakarta on Feb. 23. (The Jakarta Post/Karina Soerjodibroto)
O
n Wednesday and Thursday, lovers of classical music in Jakarta were treated to a sumptuous event by the Amadeus Symphony Orchestra when it presented an Invitation A Une Exposition Musicale, featuring works by Faure, Debussy, Wagner, Mozart and Ravel.
This was a “revenge” event, as musical director and orchestra founder Grace Soedargo playfully called it. The more appropriate term, perhaps, is the settlement of a previous promise, as unwieldy as the phrase sounds. For the leisurely stroll through a gallery of musical treasures conducted this week by Henrik Hochschild from Leipzig, Germany, was payback for another event.
Titled Journeys to London, polished and lovingly prepared three years ago almost to the date (scheduled for March 19 in 2020), was rudely canceled not by a power ordinance but by “a tiny virus which put a spanner in the works,” said Hochschild.
The Amadeus Music Foundation, who had successfully sold out almost every single ticket for the event at the Usmar Ismail Hall, South Jakarta, had to make a hurried notice: “We regret to inform you that the concert has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Please fill out our form to receive your ticket refund.” The good professor and his family had to hightail it back to Germany before his country closed its borders for incoming people from abroad.
In fact, Hochschild, who is co-principal of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig and Special Concertmaster of the Pacific Philharmonic Tokyo 2023/2024 period, returned to Indonesia in the interim for the Amadeus Music School and Symphony Orchestra Foundation’s 30th anniversary.
The joyful event was celebrated in the last week of September 2022 with an uplifting concert titled Seaside to Countryside conducted by Hochschild, performing the works of Mendelssohn, Weber, Bruch and Beethoven.
Though, technically, Indonesia was still in the throes of COVID-19 (despite the pandemic rapidly flattening out), the concert was another sold-out performance and has become the wont of any Amadeus event. The concert featured clarinet soloist Nino Ario Wijaya and viola soloist Noah Joseph Wimadjaja, both teachers at the Amadeus Music School, being superb musicians in their own right.
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