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NEWS
The series of Kalevi Aho concerto premieres
continues in Antwerp on 21 October 2016 with
the performance by the DeFilharmonie of the
Double Concerto for English Horn and Harp it has
commissioned from him. The soloists will be Anneleen Lenaerts, harp, and Dimitri Mestdag, cor
anglais. Aho’s 2nd Violin Concerto will receive its
premiere in Kotka on 30 November by the Kymi
Sinfonietta. The soloist is Elina Vähälä.
Aho’s Symphony No. 14 ‘Rituals’ will receive
five performances in August. It is on the tour
programme for the Lappeenranta City Orchestra in Finland and Lithuania on August 10-19
(there will be four performances in all) and the
Chamber Orchestra of Lapland will play it at the
Luosto Classic Festival on 14 August.
A new music festival dedicated to Kalevi Aho
will be launched in Forssa, Finland on July 1-2. It
will focus on his chamber music, including piano
works performed by Sonja Fräki.
NORDIC
HIGHLIGHTS
2/2016
NEWSLE T TER FROM GEHRMANS MUSIKFÖRLAG & FENNICA GEHRMAN
Sound samples
, video clips
and other material are available at
www.gehrmans.se/highlights
Cover photo: : Miranda Tini in African Prophetess at the
Larsson Gothe Festival/Jan Olav Wedin, Mats Larsson
Gothe/Mats Bäcker, Kirmo Lintinen/Maarit Kytöharju
(Music Finland)
Editors: Henna Salmela and Kristina Fryklöf
Translations: Susan Sinisalo and Robert Carroll
Design: Tenhelp Oy/Tenho Järvinen
ISSN 2000-2742 (Print), ISSN 2000-2750 (Online)
Printed in Sweden by TMG Sthlm, Bromma 2016
HIGHLIGHTS
2/2016
Gehrmans has entered into an extended collaboration with Jacob Mühlrad. The agreement,
which initially applied to his choral music, now
also includes orchestral and chamber music, as
well as his border-crossing cooperation with
Swedish Grammy Award winning rap artist Silvana Imam. When Mühlrad receives his master’s degree from the composition programme
at the Royal College of Music in June there are
already many commissions waiting: a violin concerto, a couple of large-scale choral works and a
number of chamber music pieces.
Karlsson and Nieminen
The Lapland Chamber Orchestra conducted by John Storgårds is to premiere Lars
Karlsson’s Clarinet Concerto with Christoffer
Sundqvist as the soloist in Rovaniemi on 28
September. BIS will be recording the concerto alongside with Karlsson’s Seven Songs for
Baritone and Orchestra of poems by Pär Lagerkvist (with soloist Gabriel Suovanen).
Solo works by Kai Nieminen are to be premiered this summer in Finland, the UK and
Romania. A concert dedicated solely to his
music is to be held in Jyväskylä on 9 August;
Erkki Palola and Tuomas Mali will play
chamber music. Pilfink Records has released
a CD including works by Kai Nieminen performed by Tommi Hyytinen, horn (see: New
CDs).
Rautavaara’s Mine in Hungary
Einojuhani
Rautavaara’s opera The
Mine (Kaivos) is in
the repertoire of the
Hungarian
State
Opera House in October-November; the
first of the four performances is scheduled for 23 October,
and there are also
plans for bringing the production to Finland.
The conductor is Tibor Bogányi and the soloists include Tommi Hakala, Adrienn Miksch
and Sándor Balla. The opera is about the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and is one of the events
commemorating this. It tells how a community
revolts against dictatorship through the story
of workers trapped underground when a mine
collapses.
Photo: Ondine Records
Photo: Hans Lindén
Extended agreement
Photo: Saara Vuorjoki
Kalevi Aho in demand
Jacob Mühlrad
Photo: David Karlsson
Albert Schnelzer will
be next year´s Weekend
Festival Composer at the
Stockholm Concert Hall.
Scheduled for 6-9 April,
the festival will feature
some 15 of his orchestral
and chamber works, including the premiere of a
new 20-minute orchestral
piece dedicated to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic under the direction of Evan Rogister. Jacob Koranyi will be soloist in the cello concerto
Crazy Diamond, and the Gävle Symphony Orchestra will make a guest performance, together
with Francois Leleux, in the oboe concerto The
Enchanter.
Photo: Beatrice Lundborg
Schnelzer at Weekend Festival
Harri Viitanen highlighted
The spring 2016 issue of the French magazine
Orgues Nouvelles has highlighted the organ
music of Finnish composer-organist Harri Viitanen. There are two works by him – Images
d’oiseau and Voyager – on the accompanying
CD, and an article by Carolyn Shuster Fournier extols his music for its universal visions and
mystique, calling him a spiritual son of Olivier
Messiaen. Viitanen has given many performances in France, at such illustrious churches as Notre Dame and La Sainte-Trinité de Paris, where
he gave a recital of his own works in May 2015.
Päivi Nikkanen-Kalt and Harri Viitanen in
front of the Église de la Sainte-Trinité de Paris.
P R E M I E R E S Summer
2016
Håkan
Hardenberger
KIMMO HAKOLA
Photo: Marco Borggreve
Monument
Peter Friis Johansson and
Sven-David Sandström
Photo: Emelie Kroon
Broström’s Sputnik at the Proms
Sandström’s new Piano Concerto
In March of 2017 the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra will premiere Sven-David Sandström´s
Five Pieces for Piano and Orchestra. The work has
been financed by the Anders Wall Foundation and is
dedicated to pianist Peter Friis Johansson who says,
“the piano concerto is a stroke of genius. The music is
very personal, full of brilliant ideas, interesting timbres and vivid themes. This will be an epic journey
for me and undoubtedly for the audience as well.”
Englund works published
Fennica Gehrman is signing an agreement with the
Einar Englund estate for works by him that have not
yet been published. It covers 17 items for orchestra,
among them The Great Wall of China, Symphonies
3, 5 and 7, concertos, chamber and vocal music. The
birth of Englund 100 years ago is being celebrated
this year with numerous concerts and performances.
Fennica Gehrman recently published new, clean-copied orchestral material of his Symphony No. 4.
Kimmo Hakola commissions
The Gulbenkian Foundation and the European Concert Hall Organisation have commissioned Kimmo Hakola to compose a piece for
clarinet and piano for their concert season. The
premiere in London on 19 October by Horácio
Ferreira, clarinet, and David Bekker, piano
will be followed by a further 16 performances
across Europe in autumn 2016 and spring 2017.
A new string quartet by Hakola (his fourth) is
also forthcoming. Written for the Meta4 Quartet,
it will be premiered at the Kimito Island Music
Festival in July. Hakola’s first quartet made his
breakthrough on winning the Unesco Rostrum
competition in 1991.
Håkan Hardenberger will take Tobias Broström´s
Sputnik on tour with the Academy of St. Martin in
the Fields in July and August. There will be performances in Germany and Norway, and the tour will
end with a concert at the BBC Proms, for which Broström has also made an arrangement of Brahms´s
Hungarian Dance No. 6 for trumpet, banjo, accordion, piano and strings.
Annikka Konttori-Gustafsson, piano
19.5. Helsinki, Finland
String Quartet No. 4
Meta4
12.7. Kemiö, Finland (Kimito Island Music Festival)
KAI NIEMINEN
Shades... around Stonehenge Ruins
Marco Ramelli, guitar
15.6. St. Andrews, UK
The Smile of Flamboyant Wings
Tuomas Mali, piano
26.6. Campina, Romania
Northern Spells
Marko Rutanen, guitar
3.7. Jämsä, Finland
MIKKO HEINIÖ
When the Boys…/ Kun pojat…
Haglund Festival in Halmstad
Tommie Haglund will be honoured with a twoday festival in St. Nicolai Church, in his hometown Halmstad on 30 September-1 October. The
artistic leader is conductor Joachim Gustafsson,
who will present a programme featuring orchestral, choral and chamber music works. Participants include the Göteborg Opera Orchestra,
the St. Nicolai Choir, the Merentin Quartet, et al.
You will find the complete programme at: www.
gehrmans.se/en/calendar.
Heiniö’s Evening on stage and CD
The choral work Ilta (Evening) by Mikko Heiniö can now be heard on the new disc released by
the Key Ensemble. Lasting 53 minutes, it is in five
movements, each in a different language and joined
together by clarinet and cello intermezzos. The critically-acclaimed premiere in September 2015 was
a co-production with the ERI Dance Theatre to a
choreography by Tiina Lindfors. ERI and the Key
Ensemble conducted by Teemu Honkanen are now
bringing Evening to Helsinki for the first time; the
eagerly-awaited performance will be held in the Almi
Hall of the Finnish National Opera on 8 October.
Staern in focus
The Båstad Chamber Music Festival’s focus on Benjamin Staern (27 June-2 July) will include the world
premiere of Air – Spiral – Light for guitar and small
ensemble with Jacob Kellermann as soloist. It will
also see the premiere of the piano piece Drop Waves
composed for David Huang. Conducted by Daniel
Raiskin, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra will play
Godai – The Five Elements at the Nordic Music Days
in Reykjavik in October. And just before Christmas,
Staern´s family opera The Snow Queen (Snödrottningen), based on H.C. Andersen´s fairy tale, will have
its premiere at the Malmö Opera.
James D. Hicks, organ
21.6. Turku, Finland
Three Morning Songs
Sampo Haapaniemi, baritone, Ville Matvejeff, piano
12.8. Turku, Finland (Turku Music Festival)
Jag vill gå mellan rågen
Key Ensemble/Teemu Honkanen
14.8. Turku, Finland (Turku Music Festival)
BENJAMIN STAERN
Drop Waves David Huang, piano
29.6. Båstad, Sweden (Båstad Chamber Music Festival)
Air – Spiral – Light
Camilla Hoitenga, flute, Karin Dornbusch, clarinet,
Magdalena Meitzner, percussion, David Huang, piano,
Nadia Wijzenbeek, violin, Ylvali Zilliacus, viola,
Marie Macleod, cello, cond. Christian Karlsen, sol.
Jacob Kellermann, guitar
1.7. Båstad, Sweden (Båstad Chamber Music Festival)
JACOB MÜHLRAD
Point of No Return for solo cello
Antonio Hallongren
29.6. New York, USA
OLLI KORTEKANGAS
Valon aika (Time of Light)
Juha Kotilainen, baritone, Janne Malinen, guitar
30.6. Heinävesi, Finland
JYRKI LINJAMA
Sonata da chiesa III
Petteri Pitko, harpsichord
15.7. Hiittinen, Finland (Kimito Island Music Festival)
KALEVI AHO
Passacaglia
Marko Ylönen, cello, Timo Korhonen, guitar
13.8. Luosto, Finland (Luosto Classic)
SVEN-DAVID SANDSTRÖM
Föreställningen/The Performance
– Chamber Opera
Ensemble from the Royal Swedish Orchestra/Mattias Böhm,
Love Derwinger, piano, Jeanette Köhn, soprano,
Katija Dragojevic & Miriam Treichl, mezzo-soprano
28.8. Stockholm, Sweden (Baltic Sea Festival)
LARS KARLSSON
Clarinet Concerto
Lapland CO/John Storgårds, sol. Christoffer Sundqvist
28.9. Rovaniemi, Finland
MARIE SAMUELSSON
Eros Effect and Solidarity – Love Trilogy No. 3
Nordic CO/Sarah Ioannides
8.10. Sundsvall, Sweden
HIGHLIGHTS
2/2016