Performer: KBS Symphony Orchestra

Vivid, full-bodied Tchaikovsky, passionate without losing its grammar, on a persuasive night for the KBS Symphony Orchestra.

In Myung-whun Chung’s first concert as the orchestra’s tenth Music Director, Leonidas Kavakos’ account of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto is built on exposure rather than varnish. 

An evening at the Seoul Arts Center in which clarity matters as much as volume and the most telling virtuosity comes from a refusal to grandstand.

Propulsive Prokofiev from pianist Dmitry Shishkin between Ravel’s hypnotic minimalism and Schoenberg’s late-Romantic complexity. 

By the close of the performance, one sensed that the audience’s exhilaration stemmed less from polished execution and more from a shared immersion in the music’s dramatic arc—elements that lingered as the defining memory of this eventful evening.

Like the grainy intensity of a high-contrast black-and-white photograph, these rugged edges accentuated Mahler’s expressive extremes, reaffirming the conductor’s innate flair for crafting a grand aesthetic narrative within the symphony’s expansive architecture.

The appointment coincides with the orchestra’s 70th anniversary in 2026, and will see Chung take overall responsibility for the ensemble’s artistic planning and direction.

With concerts featuring Myung-whun Chung at the piano, Pinchas Zukerman leading from the podium, and inventive programming from Chief Conductor Andrea Battistoni, the Tokyo Philharmonic’s 2025 season straddles many divides.