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| Music director Mikko Franck of Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra / Courtesy of SCPA |
By Yun Suh-young
The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra), one of France's representative orchestras, will be making a return to Korea four years after its last visit with then music director Chung Myung-whun.
On its first visit to Asia with new Finnish music director Mikko Franck, who took over the baton from Chung in 2015, the orchestra makes its finale performance in the country in Seoul on Thursday, following visits to Busan, Tongyeong, and Daejeon. The Seoul performance will take place at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts.
The program includes Sibelius' Nocturne from King Christian II Suite, Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F, Ravel's Ma Mere l'Oye Suite, and Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 2. Pianist Son Yeol-eum will perform with the orchestra for Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F, a song which is better known as figure champion Kim Yuna's free skating song during the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
Conductor Mikko Franck, 38, has been touted a prodigy. He debuted in his early 20s and worked with renowned orchestras such as the London Symphony, the Munich Philharmonic, and the Berlin Staatsoper. He worked as the music director for the Belgian National Orchestra and for the Finnish National Opera. He first collaborated with the Radio France Philharmonic as guest conductor in 2003 and has worked with the orchestra several times until taking the helm in 2015. Recently he collaborated with the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony, New York Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic.
Radio France Philharmonic is one of the three representative orchestras of France along with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Paris Orchestra (Orchestre de Paris) and is touted as a "technically perfect" orchestra.
For choosing Sibelius as the piece to start the concert, Franck told the local press, "Sibelius' is the heritage of my country and as a Finn, I wanted to symbolize my roots."
As for performing two pieces by Ravel, he said, "The orchestra is an expert with Ravel. It will show the audience what French orchestra music is really like." The pieces that will be performed are those that had been favorite repertoires of former music director Chung.
"Music is always new and different every time. We will bring out inspirations we gathered from this trip to the stage so the performance will be special with music that is available only at that time, at that place," he said.
Tickets can be booked at the SCPA homepage or the Interpark website. For more information, call 02) 399-1000.
