Career placement at HK Phil – Sze Yu Kwong Y12

Recognised as Asia’s foremost classical orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) has been with me through numerous unforgettable evenings. Our engagement started with “Symphony Under The Stars” at the Central Harbourfront when I was 4 years old. It was the first concert I went to.

Twelve years later, I completed my first internship at the Hong Kong Philharmonic Society in their marketing department.

I began by writing English summaries for news clippings from English, Chinese, German and other languages; and telephoned different performance venues to check the distribution of the HK Phil’s brochures. I then archived leaflets, posters and advertisements from previous seasons. These were all completed via Airtable, a cloud-based AI platform that creates custom workflows for running campaigns and tracking successes. I was also responsible for proofreading event descriptions and banners for concerts as the public sales for their tickets were opening soon.

Being a serious clarinettist and a seasoned orchestra player, I was soon assigned to focus on digital marketing – the highlight of my internship! On different HK Phil social media posts, I wrote bilingual captions for concert promotions, ticket sales and new additions to “Watch & Listen” (the HK Phil’s digital concert hall).

Materialising my knowledge into the business world of performing arts and gaining insight into the management behind an orchestra was fascinating. Collaborating with different stakeholders to make things happen opened up new horizons. All these fuel me up for my next step – university and career aspirations.