September’s programme also features Italian masterpieces and symphonic arrangements of Olavi Uusivirta’s songs.
Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt joins Oulu Sinfonia for the opening concert of the season series (Concerto for Orchestra, Thu 3 September). During an international career spanning more than five decades, Hewitt has received numerous honours, including the MIDEM Classical Award, Gramophone magazine’s Artist of the Year title, and appointment to the Order of Canada. In recent years, Hewitt has toured the world with her acclaimed Mozart Odyssey, performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s complete piano concertos. At Oulu Sinfonia’s season opener, she performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 16 in D major (1784). Conducted by Chief Conductor Rumon Gamba, the programme also includes Belgian film composer Frédéric Devreese’s vibrant dance suite from the film Benvenuta (1983) and Béla Bartók’s final masterpiece, Concerto for Orchestra (1943).
Piano music continues on Thursday 10 September in Carried by the Current, when pianist couple Mika Rännäli and Vanessa Cunha, who returned from New York to Oulu a few years ago, perform Francis Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos (1932). Playfully parodying Classical style, the work blends echoes of Mozart with the rhythms and colours of jazz. The programme also features ballet music from Mozart’s opera Idomeneo (1781) and Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 (1850), widely known as the Rhenish Symphony. The concert is conducted by German conductor Stefan Geiger.
On Thursday 17 September, young Italian conductor Nil Venditti brings the sounds of her homeland to Oulu in concert called Wonders of Italy. The evening culminates in Felix Mendelssohn’s radiant Italian Symphony and opens with Giacomo Puccini’s rarely heard Preludio sinfonico, composed during his student years long before the operatic triumphs of Tosca, La Bohème and Turandot. The soloist of the evening is double bassist Maria Krykov, Principal Double Bass of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. She performs Giovanni Bottesini’s Double Bass Concerto No. 1 in F# minor, written by the composer often described as the Paganini of the double bass.
On Saturday 26 September, Olavi Uusivirta takes the stage at Oulu Hall. The concert brings together beloved classics from his career spanning more than twenty years alongside brand-new music from his latest album, Camouflage. Uusivirta’s band is joined by Oulu Sinfonia and the Oulu All Star Big Band, conducted by Eero Lehtimäki, for an evening of songs reimagined in rich orchestral arrangements.
The much-loved Oulu Sinfonia Chamber Musicians concert series also continues in September, as small ensembles drawn from the orchestra perform intimate classical favourites and lesser-known gems in free concerts across the Oulu region. At the Treshold of Autumn -concert will be heard on Saturday 12 September at 4 pm at Hostel Café Huvila in Toppilansalmi and on Sunday 13 September at 3 pm at the Nature Green Days holiday resort in Muhos. Advance registration for the Muhos concert is requested via the holiday resort’s website.