Kahchun Wong’s musical alchemy: Beethoven and Mahler in perfect harmony

Also published at Seen and Heard International

Anticipation crackles in the air, thick like summer lightning before the storm breaks.  A hush descends, settling over an expectant audience.  Every cough or rustling program feels like a desecration. At the podium, conductor Kahchun Wong stands at the edge of creation – shoulders squared, back straight, baton held aloft.  A moment’s pause, pregnant with possibility, his hand dips, slow and deliberate, tracing the first stroke of a masterpiece – Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

For sixty minutes Beethoven’s motifs ebb and flow, a struggle between light and shadow, order and chaos.  Wong, a captain at the helm, guides the orchestra through the tempestuous waves.  His every gesture framing the music’s path: joy, anguish, defiance, triumph.  

By the end, Wong succeeded in taking the audience gathered at Benaroya Hall on a journey they would not soon forget.  Wong conducted four performances from December 28th to 31st.  Most years, Seattle’s traditional end-of-December performances of Beethoven’s Ninth are an afterthought for devoted concertgoers.  They’re reliable revenue generators – and who doesn’t like a little uplift and possibility of Beethoven’s Magnum Opus (or one of them) to ring in the New Year?  

Yet this season, Wong’s performances were events.   Each time, he created Beethoven’s universe anew, helping an audience find a message between the notes of a transcendent symphony that still seems pioneering even in the 21st century.  Not only is Wong one of the hottest names in classical music, but – as critic Thomas May noted in his review – the performances were particularly memorable with strong phrasing, dynamic control, and a charismatic presence on the podium.  

For Wong, the challenge with Beethoven’s Ninth is ensuring that the work’s first three movements – its orchestral movements – aren’t an afterthought for the audience. “My challenge every time I play this work is how do you put the first three movements into context, because they are all so strong.” 

Wong continued, “You have the third movement, which to me is the most beautiful slow movement by Beethoven, across his entire output.  But it is always overshadowed because everyone who’s going to a Beethoven Nine performance would look forward to the finale.”

In the last two years, Wong has emerged as a reliable partner for the Seattle Symphony even as his star rises.  A Singaporean by birth, Wong’s career took off when he won the Mahler Competition in 2016.  He debuted with the orchestra in 2022 for its annual Celebrate Asia concert.  In 2022, he returned for a program featuring Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.  For the 2023-2024 season, Wong is back for two imposing masterpieces.  First, the now-past performances of Beethoven’s Ninth, and next April 2024 concerts of Mahler’s Third Symphony.  

Performing with the Seattle Symphony is a welcome experience for the young conductor.  “It’s quite a chill place,” he noted.  The Pacific Northwest’s relaxed culture contrasts with other places he has conducted.  While elsewhere Wong finds there is more bridge building he has to do as a younger, Asian conductor this is less the case in Seattle. “The people here behind backstage and on stage remind me a lot about my interactions in Japan and in Asia.  There is an openness of working, also a very strong sense of mutual respect to each other.”

Outside of Seattle, Wong’s attention is focused on a trio of renowned orchestras: The Hallé Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic and Japan Philharmonic.  The Hallé catapulted Wong into the upper echelon of conductors last year when it announced he would succeed Sir Mark Elder starting with the 2024-2025 season.  Wong takes over an English tradition steeped in Elgar, Vaughan-Williams, and Mahler, as well as a rich recording tradition that was started with John Barbirolli and has continued in recent years with lauded albums on the orchestra’s own label.  

His plans for each of the orchestras are still in formation.  In Dresden, where he serves as Principal Guest Conductor, Wong hopes to continue to grow the orchestra’s artistry beyond its traditional Germanic roots:  “It has a very special tradition, it’s a little bit like Vienna, the musicians all play in a certain kind of way, so auditions would be, in the orchestra you might have a second generation or a third generation musician who might have studied with a first or earlier generation teacher who used to play in that orchestra. So, there is a very traditional passing down of that Dresden sound” Wong noted.  

Wong debuted in his new role last year by pairing Also Sprach Zarathustra with Thai composer Narong Prangcharoen’s Reflection of Shadow.  “My job is how do we contextualize Strauss.”  In February, Wong will perform Mahler’s First Symphony alongside Sinfonia Tapkaara, a work by Akira Ifukube. “It’s completely symphonic, so the whole concert there’s no soloist and it’s a symphony.  A very strong work by Ifukube, who is well known for his music to Godzilla.”

The Japan Philharmonic, where Wong is Chief Conductor, presents different challenges.  A rich, established musical culture in Japan makes it possible for musicians, conductors, and composers to pursue their careers exclusively in Asia.  “Japan has a rich classical music culture, which is quite unknown to the rest of the world as many things in Japan are.” 

Helping the rest of the world appreciate Japanese musical culture will take time.  Wong’s willingness to juxtapose East and West will help in the short term.  But over the longer course of his career, he hopes to help establish the reputations of more Asian composers.  “My own dream would be at some point if there would be a kind of composer’s institute or a kind of support towards new works, symphonic works especially for my region, for Southeast Asia, for greater Asia.”  

When Wong returns to the Seattle Symphony in April, he will bring with him a familiar piece.  Wong won the esteemed Mahler Competition in 2016 in part because of his mastery of the Third Symphony.  In a short video from the competition, he appears captivated by the music he is shaping with his gestures.

“The Third Symphony to me is actually a most beautiful narrative, and it’s one that I identify with very easily,” said Wong.

Like Beethoven’s Ninth, Mahler’s Third is unusual – even for a composer like Mahler.  He was always striving for more in his compositions.  In one often repeated quote, the composer said a symphony, “must be like the world. It must contain everything.”  The Third Symphony comes closest to achieving this.  It is his longest symphony: A performance typically lasting ninety minutes.  It is also his only symphony with an explicit program.  “I mean in the West you would talk about the first day of creation, God created something, second day, third day, fourth day, and it’s a little bit similar like that.”

Mahler divides the composition into two parts comprising six movements, delineating the progression of existence and human comprehension.  The initial movements establish a connection with the natural world, while the concluding three movements — titled “What man tells me,” “What the angels tell me,” and finally, “What heaven tells me”– delve deeper into the human condition.  The sixth movement, a purely instrumental piece, stands as a potential apex in Mahler’s orchestral repertoire. 

“It’s transcendental, it’s not even about whether this is the Western God or the Hindu God or the Taoist God.  It can be anything, it transcends, it’s basically transcendence, and it’s another twenty-five, thirty minutes of just pure beauty,” added Wong. 

All of Mahler’s symphonies embody philosophical qualities, as the composer attempted to make sense of the world and his mortality through music.  Other symphonies might be more exultant, riper with pathos, but none capture life — from the natural world to the human – as effectively.  

As Wong embarks on new artistic ventures, carrying with him the torch of both Western and Eastern musical traditions, one thing is certain: His path is one audiences and music-lovers will continue to watch with rapt attention, each gesture of his baton promising a future as thrilling and transformative as the music he commands from the podium today.

His baton isn’t just a conductor’s tool, it’s a bridge – connecting the legacy of Beethoven to the spirit of Narong Prangcharoen, for example.  His gestures are a dialogue between Mahler’s soaring symphonies and the delicate brushstrokes of Japanese ink paintings.  Wong’s journey is more than just a conductor’s career; it’s a cultural revolution in the making.  He is a pioneer, a pathfinder, a maestro of understanding.  And as his baton dances through the air, we know one thing for certain: The future of music is bright.