Sir, - The tour of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland to Hong Kong certainly seems to have attracted much attention and did much to enhance further the orchestra's international profile and reputation. Unfortunately, in a country renowned for begrudgery, criticisms of the tour do not come as a surprise, though happily these negative views are very much in the minority. It is regrettable, however, that what criticism there has been should be so ill informed.
The NSOI was invited through its record company, Naxos, by the Urban Council of Hong Kong to be the orchestra in residence for the seventh Hong Kong Midsummer Classics Festival, following the participation in previous years of other international orchestras. This festival is aimed at attracting a new and mainly young audience to orchestral music, in this instance one drawn prim army for the Chinese population of Hong Kong, whose exposure to Western classical music is limited.
Arminta Wallace, in her excellent and colourful report, aptly described the event as the "Irish Hong Kong Proms". As with our own Proms, I am happy to say that we played to near capacity audiences for six concerts in one week, some 12,000 people in all. The urban council obviously knows its audience!
To set the record straight - yes, we did play Chinese music and film music. However, we also played a symphony concert, an opera concert and a programme of symphonic dances. Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, Ravel's La Valse, Falla's Three Cornered Hat, Khachaturian's Masquerade are all popular, certainly, but hardly a "mishmash of pop and film scores," as disparagingly referred to by John Horgan at the Merriman Summer School.
For the record also, Irish music featured in the form of Hamilton Harty's tone poem with the Wild Geese and a specially arranged version of Bill Whelan's Riverdance. Those who complain of an absence of contemporary Irish works misunderstand the nature of this particular event. They should also appreciate that the same record company which they accuse of inflicting this repertoire on the orchestra is undertaking on its Marco Polo Label an entire Irish Composer Series" which will see the works of our native composers on sale world wide.
Finally, Irish audiences will have an opportunity to judge for themselves whether or not an opportunity to showcase the orchestra's excellence was lost when they hear the broadcast recordings of the final two concerts on FM3 in the coming months. - Yours, etc.
Head of Orchestras/Performing Groups,
RTE, Dublin 4.