March for Oulu Sinfonia is traditionally dedicated to the Oulu Music Festival, where the orchestra features in three different productions. The festival’s 35th anniversary will be celebrated with a Anniversary Concert on Friday 14 March at 18:30. The programme includes Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, Leevi Madetoja’s symphonic poem Kullervo, and Kari Ikonen’s Guezo. The concert will be conducted by Anna-Maria Helsing, Oulu Sinfonia’s Chief Conductor from 2010 to 2013. The soloists are soprano Heta Sammalisto, pianists Anton Mejias and Kari Ikonen, as well as saxophonist Jukka Perko.
The SCORE video game music concerts, taking place on Thursday 20 March and Friday 21 March, will bring classic video game worlds to life in Madetoja Hall. Under the baton of Eero Lehtimäki, the orchestra will dive into the soundscapes of Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, and more. The concerts will be hosted by Orvar Säfström, with soprano Sabina Zweiacker, known for her stunning interpretations of video game music, as the featured soloist.
Oulu Sinfonia’s string quartet will also be part of the chamber opera Ihminen parhaan kykynsä mukaan, premiering at Oulu Theatre on Friday 20 March. Conducted by Marko Hilpo, the opera stars opera singer Waltteri Torikka and actor Pihla Penttinen. The work, composed by Joel Järventausta and based on a libretto by bestselling author Tommi Kinnunen, is directed by Pertti Sveholm. Premiered in 2024 as a co-production of Turku City Theatre, Saaristo-ooppera, and the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, the opera is currently nominated for the Thalia Award for Performance of the Year.
Oulu Sinfonia’s season concerts continue on Thursday 27 March with Serenade for Two, featuring a world-class guest soloist. One of the most acclaimed English tenors of today, Allan Clayton, makes his Oulu debut. Hailed for his performances at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Clayton will perform Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings alongside Lauri Vasala, Oulu Sinfonia’s Principal Horn, who won second prize at the 2022 Lieksa Brass Week International Horn Competition. A rarely heard work in Finland, Serenade sets six British poets’ reflections on the mysteries of night to music.
The evening opens with Jean Sibelius’s Scaramouche suite, another seldom-performed gem. The concert, conducted by Chief Conductor Rumon Gamba, concludes with Ralph Vaughan Williams’s serene Symphony No. 5, a work that offered a message of peace amidst the chaos of World War II.