Concert Hall, Hong Kong Cultural Centre /Hong Kong /Jul 5, 2024 /Ernest Wan / On 4 July, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra announced that the 24-year-old conductor Tarmo Peltokoski, of Finnish and Filipino descent, will become its music director in the 2026/27 season. Peltokoski had previously conducted the HK Phil in only one programme, in June 2023; following the announcement, his second ever engagement with the orchestra, which took place the very next day, was eagerly anticipated as an event offering nothing less than a glimpse into the orchestra’s future. This concert of new-found significance was ushered in by the muted first notes of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No 2 (1913, revamped 1923), with Seong-Jin Cho as soloist. The 30-year-old South Korean pianist loaded that unassuming opening theme with portent in the first movement’s huge, dense cadenza – which he performed with exceptional clarity – and thus lent its fearsome subsequent tutti restatement a sense of inevitability. In the intermezzo, which plods away like futurist machinery, Peltokoski savoured its many weird sounds, such as the loud …