Oulu Sinfonia’s October begins with the traditional orchestra concert at the Ostrobothnian Contemporary Music Festival. For the Peculiar Sounds concert on Thursday the 5th of October, the most fascinating compositions from the repertoire of our time have been selected.
Atempause, by one of the current pioneers of experimental music, the German Carola Bauckholt, converts the sighs of breath into a mechanically resounding phenomenon; Water, a joint work by Sanna Ahvenjärvi and Tapio Lappalainen which won the Teosto prize in the spring of 2023, creates a composition out of the states of the element of water that tickles the fancy. One of Finland’s most acclaimed violin concertos, Auseil by Veli Kujala, was born in the spirit of H. P. Lovecraft’s Sci-fi works for the Oulu-born violinist Eriikka Maalismaa. André de Ridder, a specialist in the delicate nuances of contemporary music who has directed some of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, will conduct the concert.
On Friday the 13th the youth, or rather the youth of the past, will once again gather in the Madetoja Hall for the Entisten nuorten sävellahja LIVE concert. In the nostalgia concert this year, Laura Voutilainen, Mikko Alatalo and Ilkka Alanko, established stars for decades, will take to the stage. The concert, presented by Jorma Hietamäki and Paula Jokimies, will feature some of the trio’s best songs and the stories behind them as magnificent symphonic arrangements. Oulu Sinfonia will be conducted by Jukka Myllys, as usual. Entisten nuorten sävellahja LIVE will also be performed on Saturday the 14th of October, from 4 pm onwards. Restaurant Preludi will also offer an Oktoberfest-inspired buffet alongside the Saturday concert.
The Saturday concert will also be broadcast live on Yle Areena. In addition, recordings of the concert will be broadcast Yle TV Channel 1 on Saturday the 11th of November 2023 at 9 pm and Yle Radio Suomi on Monday the 1st of January 2023 at 2 pm. Entisten nuorten sävellahja LIVE concert concept was awarded in June 2023 at the Prix CIRCOM Regional in the category Most original and innovative.
During the autumn, the Oulu Music Center will celebrate its 40-year-long history as the musical heart of the city. Oulu Sinfonia’s home base, the Madetoja Hall, will function as the central location of the festivities, with a mini-festival consisting of two concerts, during which many of the Oulu-born composer Leevi Madetoja’s classic works will be performed, alongside a brand-new song cycle based on L. Onerva’s poems by Lara Poe.
On Wednesday the 18th of October at the Autumn Stories Rain Down concert, some of Madetoja’s earlier work will be performed: the Finnish romantic First Symphony as well as Elegia no 1 for string orchestra. The work by the Finnish American Lara Poe is a commission from The Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Oulu Sinfonia. The soloist for the premiere and the whole festival will be mezzo-soprano Virpi Räisänen, who has captivated the world’s opera scene on a number of occasions. The concert will also be performed in the Raahe Hall on Friday the 20th of October at 6 pm, as part of the Brahe Classica Festival.
The Leevi Madetoja Festival will continue on Thursday the 19th of October with the Northerner in Paris concert, which will include some of Madetoja’s later works, such as his Third Symphony. The work, born in Paris, was more continental European in its melodies than Finnish, and it has therefore often been called with the additional moniker “French”. The concert programme also includes choral works, which will be performed by the girls’ choir of the Madetoja Music High School and Soma Ensemble. The choirs will be directed by Elina Kärki.