An unwary maestro enters the Malyasian trap
OrchestrasThe Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra has a terrible reputation for mistreating foreign players and conductors. After sacking most of its western players, the orchestra was placed under an international boycott – which has not deterred hungry conductors.
Recent baton to get caught in the music director trap are Claus Peter Flor, Fabio Mechetti and Jun Märkl.
Today, the orchestra installed Junichi Hirokami as the next music director.
Hirokami, 66, works with the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra.
Hirokami, not being western, might not be treated as badly. But the Malaysians have no great reason to love the Japanese..
The Malaysians did have no love for the Japanese during and after WWII, but all that has totally changed. There are more than 1,500 Japanese factories in Malaysia creating something llike 400,000 jobs. Japanese tourists are everywhere in Malaysia with major increases since covid over pre-covid levels. Tourism into Japan itself is booming and younger Malaysians in particular want to visit.
Hirokami….ooooh! The best Tschaik 5 and Mendelssohn 3
I ever played….The way he got the 1st violins to SOAR in the
introduction of the Mendelssohn….stunning!
SInce winning the Kondrashin Competition Hirokami has been very active in several parts of the world in addition to his native Japan. The shenanigans in the Kuala Lumpur-based orchestra should be well known to him and his management. He should therefore know what is in store for him and presumably believes he can handle the various issues. Didn’t most of these occur during the 6 year reign of Claus Peter Flor, although it seems certain management decisions made by the Petronas-appointed local manager forced his hand.
When I last heard the orchestra 7 years ago when it ws still undergoing troubles, it remained a fine ensemble. That was a programme with Sir Stephen Hough and Mark Wigglesworth conducting. The orchestra performs in one of Asia’s finest smallish concert halls with glorious acoustics designed by Kirkegaard Associates. Looking at the 2025 concert brochure, it appears to have become more of a crossover orchestra with only about half of the listed programmes from the purely classical repertoire. Yet any orchestra which includes the Philip Glass 1st Violin Concerto, Mahler’s 4th, Sibelius Mignonne Suite, the Mendelssohn ‘Scottish’ and Shostakovich 5th Symphonies surely has to be doing something right!
@Nick2: Is there any truth to the rumour that Chng Hak-Peng, the disgraced Singapore Symphony Orchestra CEO who was fired, applied to be the MPO’s CEO?
Sorry i have absolutely no idea. All I am aware of is that the CEO appointed from with the ranks of Petronas was a disaster. I did meet her once and felt she should never have been allowed near a professional orchestra.
The real problem in Kuala Lumpur as I see it stems much further back to its very origins. It was one of the then Prime Minister’s pet projects for putting Malaysia more on the international map. Mahatir Mohamad ensured that private companies were given sweet deals if they built something to aggrandise the country. Some company was conned into constructing an F1 track and it was on the F1 race calendar for a number of years. It died in 2017 a year before the end of its contract after both novelty and visitors dropped off. Petronas was permitted to construct the world’s then-tallest building on condition that it included a concert hall between the Twin Towers (one of Asia’s finest for the audience) and start up a Philharmonic. IMG Artists Consultants was given a 5-year contract to develop both the hall and the orchestra. Auditions were held in many parts of the world and the initial results under MD Klaus Bakels were very impressive.
After IMG were no longer in the picture, Petronas, while happy to have put up a vast amount of the seed money in return for the right to construct the Twin Towers, grew disenchanted with the cost of the orchestra. It inserted one of its own executves with virtually no knowledge of classical music as CEO and thus started down a long slippery slope.
I have no knowledge now if the musicians are full-time or freelance. I just know that the few times I heard them 7 and 8 years ago, they were still a fine classical orchestra.
If you are anti-Western why have a Western style orchestra at all? Could it be in fact unwarranted cultural appropriation ?
If your sole criterion for those countries with an anti-Western bias is that they not have symphony orchestras, you’d rule out roughly a great portion of the world! How many professional western symphony orchestras in China, for example? It has ballooned in recent years to more than 70. How many dozens in Russia? Iran has several. Thankfully western classical music is a universal language
He’s been there and has conducted the now-amateur orchestra several times since its collapse. I’m not entirely sure why he would take on such a gig—maybe it’s for the good massages in town? And does he realize that the management’s new social media campaign will associate him with jokers and amateur performances on the internet, visible to everyone around the world? Not to mention to be associated with the shady and mediocre concertmaster mentioned in the previous post, whose sexual violation is about to come to light.
Anyway, the orchestra can’t play itself, and I hope Junichi makes it through. Perhaps he’s not as wise as he thinks. As he puts it, ‘Mankind is so stupid.’
May you elaborate on the “sexual violations” part? Because it’s a serious topic and if you mentioned it without any information, you know it’s gonna be impactful? Not that I’m taking his side or anything but it is a serious topic.
I’m equally curious about this intriguing revelation concerning our dear Concertmaster. It seems like someone’s getting quite riled up, and if there’s nothing to support it, it almost feels like there’s a personal agenda at play.
Is the orchestra “now-amateur” as alleged by Sir Bows A Lot. I believe that is just not true.
What can be, unburdened by what has been!
To the best of my knowledge, this weak individual who hides behind a false identity and spreads this baseless accusation should be the one investigated
The story of how badly Jun Märkl was treated by the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) management is indeed a sad one. During the pandemic, MPO offered Märkl a five-year contract as Music Director, which he signed in December 2020, effective from January 2021 to January 2026. However, COVID prevented Märkl from conducting any concerts during the first half of 2021, and on July 1, 2021, it was announced that the MPO musicians’ contracts would not be renewed beyond the end of 2021. The end result was the orchestra as it had been known previously was being disbanded; it was effectively the end of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra as a classical orchestra. A handful of musicians were re-hired, but it has now become a gig orchestra focused primarily on Malaysian pop and crossover concerts. When more serious classical music concerts are attempted, over half the musicians are freelancers, resulting in a very noticeable decline in quality, like that of a mediocre amateur community orchestra.
It was never announced publicly or internally what happened to Jun Märkl and his contract. From others we hear that Khor Chin Yang, who heads MPO’s artistic management, ghosted Märkl — completely ignoring Märkl’s emails and calls. Chin Yang later lied to Märkl about decisions of which he (Chin Yang) was part of. Consequently, Märkl never returned to conduct the MPO, and his appointment as Music Director effectively vanished. I sincerely hope that Junichi Hirokami fares better, but I wouldn’t count on it as long as Chin Yang is around.
I remember Chin Yang was formerly a Singapore Symphony librarian before returning to Kuala Lumpur as the MPO librarian! In a poor decision by a former MPO CEO, Chin Yang was moved to artist management. I hear that the MPO musicians unanimously agree that Chin Yang should have remained in the library, where at least he performed competently…
Chin Yang was indeed a very fine librarian! it is really a shame that he went to the dark side.