The disgraced maestro’s new ensemble brings exquisite sacred music to Hong Kong for the first time
A Comeback Concert That Proved the Music Still Speaks
Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the British conductor whose six-decade association with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra ended in disgrace in 2023, returned to the concert stage in Hong Kong on March 6 with his new Constellation Choir and Orchestra – and proved that whatever his personal failures, his musicianship remains of the highest order. Performing at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the CCO delivered two of Mozart’s sacred works – the Requiem and the Great Mass in C minor – with a buoyancy, transparency and emotional depth that left audiences deeply moved.
The Circumstances of a Disgrace
Context matters. In August 2023, Gardiner physically assaulted baritone William Thomas backstage following a performance of Berlioz’s Les Troyens, striking the singer after Thomas exited the podium stage in a direction Gardiner considered incorrect. The assault was indefensible. The conductor, then 80, resigned from the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra he had founded six decades earlier. The episode prompted widespread debate about abuse of power, the tolerance of difficult behaviour in classical music institutions, and the obligations of artists to those they work with. Gardiner subsequently underwent cognitive mental therapy and a period of reflection before re-emerging. In 2024 he founded the Constellation Choir and Orchestra, the new ensemble that made its Hong Kong debut at the 2026 Arts Festival.
Music That Rose Above the Circumstances
The Hong Kong debut was impressive by any measure. The CCO demonstrated meticulous attention to detail in Mozart’s complex choral and orchestral writing, dispelling any notion that the ensemble was a merely consolatory project for a disgraced figure. The Requiem’s opening Introitus was delivered with a heartbeat-like rhythmic propulsion that was profound without heaviness, balancing earthiness and ethereality in a way that recalled Gardiner’s finest work with the Monteverdi forces. The Great Mass in C minor, Mozart’s grandest and most architecturally ambitious sacred work, received a performance of colourful musicality and structural clarity. Reviewer Christopher Halls, writing for the South China Morning Post, described the concert as more uplifting than grave, despite its liturgical subject matter – the highest compliment for sacred music that can sometimes become merely ponderous in lesser hands.
The Hong Kong Arts Festival as a Cultural Lifeline
The Hong Kong Arts Festival continues to bring world-class international programming to a city whose cultural freedoms have been under increasing pressure since 2020. The willingness of artists such as Gardiner’s ensemble to perform in Hong Kong, and the HKAF’s continued ability to secure high-calibre international programming, represents a form of cultural solidarity with a city that needs it. The Hong Kong Arts Festival has operated continuously since 1973, weathering political upheavals, the 1997 handover and the post-2020 restrictions. That continuity matters. Institutions that maintain their standards under pressure provide anchors of normalcy and quality for communities navigating uncertainty.
Mozart and the Case for Cultural Freedom
Mozart’s sacred music is, among other things, a meditation on mortality and transcendence – on what it means to face endings with courage and grace. The Requiem, left incomplete at Mozart’s own death and finished by his student Sussmayr, carries particular emotional weight when performed in a city confronting the loss of freedoms that once seemed permanent. Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Mozart entry documents the composer’s own turbulent relationship with power, patronage and institutional authority – a story with clear resonances for artists working anywhere that cultural independence is under threat. The CCO’s Hong Kong debut suggests that Gardiner, whatever his personal failings, retains the ability to draw from performers a quality of music-making that elevates everyone present. Gramophone magazine, the leading authority on classical music recording and performance, has followed Gardiner’s career closely and will likely assess the CCO’s international debut performances in forthcoming issues.
Mei Ling Chan
Education & Social Policy Journalist, Apple Daily UK
Contact: meiling.chan@appledaily.uk
Mei Ling Chan is an education and social policy journalist specializing in school systems, youth development, and public policy impacts on families. She trained at a top-tier Chinese journalism institution, where she focused on policy reporting, data interpretation, and media ethics, building a strong analytical foundation.
Her professional experience includes reporting for Apple Daily and other liberal Chinese publications, producing coverage on education reform, student movements, social welfare programs, and inequality in access to public services. Mei Ling’s reporting combines document analysis with interviews involving educators, students, and policy experts.
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