5. Philharmonic Concert

Technically difficult passages, playing in extremely high registers and then the grand solo cadenza in the first movement – Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto is a piece in which the difficulties are lined up like pearls on a string. As technically demanding as this work is, its artistic quality is immense. It is undisputedly one of the greatest violin concertos of all time.

Youngkun Kwak interprets Tchaikovsky’s phenomenal violin concerto under the baton of Sebastian Lang-Lessing. Lang-Lessing conducts the most renowned orchestras on five continents and guests at the most important opera houses and concert halls. He has been musical director of the Korean National Opera since 2020 and spent ten highly successful years conducting the San Antonio Symphony in Texas.

In addition to Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, he will be conducting a work of otherworldly proportions. In his The Planets, Gustav Holst dedicates seven movements to the planets of our solar system, named after Roman deities. With enormous musical ingenuity, a large orchestra and monumental sound effects, he describes the namesakes rather than the celestial bodies. The Planets has influenced 20th-century film music and even rock, pop and metal greats such as Frank Zappa, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band and Iron Maiden.