The BBC Symphony Orchestra and violinist Ilya Gringolts will premiere Lotta Wennäkoski’s violin concerto Prosoidia at the Barbican on 3 November with Eva Ollikainen conducting. The Lahti and the Norrlandsoperan Symphony Orchestras are the other commissioners. Another recent work by Wennäkoski is Ele for clarinet and orchestra (world premiere in Kokkola, Finland on 29 September with…
Géza Szilvay turned 80 in September, and it is more than five decades since he began to develop his famous Colourstrings method. His sources of inspiration are the same as ever: “Making music makes your soul grow!” Géza Szilvay’s magnum opus came to completion in April 2022 when Fennica Gehrman published the final module in…
Jennah Vainio’s orchestral Sylvia’s Lullaby is to be premiered in a concert given by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra on 20 October. The piece was inspired by the Pauper’s Lullaby (1907) by Robert Kajanus, the subject of which was one to which Vainio could relate because of her orphaned grandmother. Sylvia’s Lullaby is part of the…
Anssi Karttunen will be the soloist in Antti Auvinen’s new work for cello and video to receive its first performance at the EstOvest Festival (Contemporary Cello Week) in Turin in October.Auvinen’s new flute concerto Ventilation Beat was premiered at the Summer Sounds festival in Porvoo of the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra on 30 June, with Bjørnar…
“Resolutely inspired, joyful, complex, fleeting, and visionary. Rantala proves once again that he is one of the greatest European artists.” These enthusiastic reviews portrait Iiro Rantala’s new work Veneziana for chamber ensemble and piano, which has already received several performances. It is a musical kaleidoscope about the famous city and composers that are linked to it –…
Composer Tiina Myllärinen was awarded at the Finnish Music Publishers Association’s anniversary gala on 1. September in Helsinki. Myllärinen received an award for her work (Bad) Dreams come true for string quartet in the small scale work category. The quartet was composed last year and commissioned by the Uusinta Ensemble and the Sea Lapland String…
