Peta Stewart
After a series of sensational performances of Romeo and Juliet with Cape Town City Ballet two years ago, the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra couldn’t wait to get Jonathan Lo back to Cape Town. He is here shortly to conduct the second and final concerts in the CPO’s Summer Festival at the City Hall on 18 and 25 January, 2024.
Violinist Miclen LaiPang is the soloist in the Barber Violin Concerto on 18 January and cellist Luka Coetzee in the Prokofiev Sinfonia Concertante on 25 January.
Lo has been “on a bit of a hamster wheel. Just before Christmas I had been with a major work – the incredible Dante Project by Thomas Adés at the Royal Opera House in London before 16 Swan Lakes in the space of two weeks at the Sydney Opera House, so I have been grateful for a little break before coming to Cape Town”.
Now music director of Australia Ballet, Lo spent the first few years of his life growing up in Hong Kong and was lucky to have been surrounded by music.
“My parents are not musical but they appreciated the importance of a musical education, so I was sent to music lessons early. For as far as I could remember I was always playing in ensembles, and very soon I was playing in concerts, or spending days away rehearsing in residential programmes. I first played Scheherazade (which I will conduct in the second concert) as a horn player when I was 13 – and it was wonderfully captivating. However, it was the freedom, and the opportunity to connect with people through music that was the addiction.”
“Music made in a group was a way for me to feel a part of a community, be heard as an individual, and to feel the weight of my contribution towards a greater whole, and it offered me the freedom to be independent. All of which was amazingly empowering in a city where one could so easily be lost in amongst the crowd. To this day, to empower the individual within the context of a community in search of something great is still my mantra when I approach my conducting.”
Eclectic range of genres
Clearly his visit here in 2022 resulted in a mutual admiration society for the engagement. “This will, without a doubt, remain one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Yes, my wife Laura and I got engaged in Cape Town, but that aside, it was the work that the CPO and I did together that was exceptional: the hard work, the alertness to fresh ideas, and the brilliant abilities across the organisation – from the musicians to the backroom staff – makes the CPO an undoubted leader in the region’s cultural landscape.”
Although some of his career high points have involved conducting holding top positions in ballet companies, “I have been fortunate enough to have done an eclectic range of genres from chamber choir to orchestras. Conducting in symphony concerts and ballet obviously has subtle differences, and it may seem that in ballet the music making in restricted by extra-musical elements, but of course there are always extra-musical considerations even in the concert hall: the acoustic of the space, the physical and mental state of the musicians, the occasion of the performance etc.”
“What I am looking forward to though, is the freedom for the orchestra to explore ideas and to let these suggestions develop, and to allow for the musicians to flourish as they take centre stage. Both the Rachmaninov and the Rimsky-Korsakov are famous ballets, and I am look forward to hearing and shaping our phrasing away from the ballet.”
Connections almost telepathic
Lo, who is also a licensed pilot, chose to be a musician – he read music at Oxford and studied conducting at the Royal Northern College – “because of the opportunity to empower the individual within the context of a community in search of something great. I have been fortunate to have worked with some fantastic conductors, and it is those conductors who respect the musicians as masters of their own artistry, whilst shaping and moulding an interpretation together, that I have found most inspiring.”
“There are moments where, within the orchestra, our understanding for each other is such that our musical connections seem almost telepathic, and this focus, this energy transmits itself to those who are listening. It is in these moments where fresh musical ideas – sometimes risky, sometimes ridiculous, but often sublime, and always thrilling – are inspired and we are all swept up in the moment. This is the power of music making, and why I think live music created by flesh and bones can never be replaced.”
What’s next?
Apart from rushing back to Sydney for some concerts and the Alice in Wonderland ballet, he is on a mission “ to debunk the idea of ‘conducting for ballet’ as the reserve for the very specialist conductors: both ballet and the musicians who play for ballet need conductors who are first and foremost good conductors!”
Who: Conductor Jonathan Lo
What: Summer Festival at the City Hall with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra
When: Thursdays, 18, 25 January 2024, at 7.30pm for CP0; pre-concert talks at 6.45pm
Concert tickets: Artscape Dial-a-Seat 021 421 7695 / Webtickets CPO
Dress rehearsal tickets: Quicket
WS
