In the spring season 2024, Oulu Sinfonia will host Finnish musicians and also top international soloists, including winner of the latest Maj Lind Piano Competition Piotr Pawlak, winner of the 2015 Jean Sibelius Violin Competition Christel Lee, and world-renowned bassoonist Bram van Sambeek.
The Oulu Sinfonia will open their season at Oulu Theatre in January with repeat performances of The Magic Flute opera that gained huge popularity in Oulu in early 2023.
Regular season concerts will resume in the Madetoja Hall of Oulu Music Centre on Thursday 8 February. From the New World concert’s programme features the world premiere of Sampo Kasurinen’s viola concerto, commissioned jointly by the Oulu Sinfonia and Sinfonia Lahti. The soloist is Lilli Maijala, who broke onto international stages from her native Oulu and is currently Professor of viola at Zurich University of the Arts. The concert will culminate in Symphony No 9 by Antonín Dvořák, “From the New World”, under Oulu Sinfonia’s Chief Conductor Rumon Gamba.
Another world premiere will be heard in Dace With Me concert on 25 April: a double concerto for violin and cello by Finnish composer Kalevi Aho. The soloists are Christel Lee and Jonathan Roozeman, for whom Aho tailored his composition. As guest conductor for this concert will be Jessica Cottis, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra.
On Thursday 10 May at The King of Bassoon concert, a new piece by Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen will receive its first performance in Finland. Mosaics was co-commissioned by the Oulu Sinfonia and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. The composition is based on Tarkiainen’s recent opera, A Room of One’s Own, which is inspired by the life of the author Virginia Woolf. The opera received its Finnish premiere at the Savonlinna Opera Festival last summer. In the same concert will also be heard the bassoon concerto of Finnish composer Jaakko Kuusisto performed by Dutch bassoonist Bram van Sambeek, one of the brightest world stars of his instrument.
Another premiere with dancers, an orchestra, soloists and a choir will be the ballet pantomime Okon Fuoko (1927) by Finnish composer Leevi Madetoja. In April, the Alpo Aaltokoski Company and JoJo – Oulu Dance Center will visit Oulu Theatre with shows of Okon Fuoko – See Me, a choreography by Alpo Aaltokoski, under conductor I-Han Fu, who serves as percussionist for the Oulu Sinfonia.
Among the engaging visiting soloists of the season is Polish pianist Piotr Pawlak, the latest winner of the Maj Lind Piano Competition. At One Thousand and One Nights concert on 29 February, he will interpret Sergey Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, considered to be the most challenging piano concerto in the stock repertoire both in terms of its technical challenges and interpretation.
The spring season of the Oulu Sinfonia features several special concerts. On Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 February in Seasons 2.0 concert, the Madetoja Hall will be transformed into Moominvalley to house performances of Seasons in Moominvalley, a new work by Finnish Lauri Porra. Drawing on Tove Jansson’s tales, the cycle of the year will be brought to life with music by Porra, animations by the illustrator and graphic designer Carlos da Cruz, and narration by actor Alma Pöysti. This performance will be paired with Max Richter’s modern take on The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi.
The following week, audiences can become absorbed in Oulu Early Music Festival. On 22 February, evergreens by Jean-Philippe Rameau, George Friedrich Handel and Antonio Vivaldi will be heard at Oulu Cathedral in Water Music concert under leadership of Nicholas McGegan, specialist in baroque music.
Baroque music will also be heard around Easter, on Sunday 24 March and Wednesday 27 March, as Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion will be staged in collaboration with the Oulu Diocese and the Oulu Music Festival. The production will also visit the city of Luleå across the sea in Sweden. Considered to be Bach’s main work, the over three-hour-long Passion depicts the final moments of Jesus’ life as told in the Gospel of Matthew.
April brings pace and major hits. At the beginning of the month, on the 4 and 5 April, we’ll celebrate with vocal ensemble Rajaton for ABBA’s victory in the Eurovision song contest, which the band secured with their superhit Waterloo exactly 50 years ago. Realised for over 30 years already, the traditional Tutti Juttu outreach project brings together music classes from the Oulu region to form a grand orchestra with Oulu Sinfonia under leadership of Matias Nässi on 18 and 19 April. Just as traditional, yet always exceptional, the Oldies But Goldies concert (concert to celebrate the First of May) will be played on April 30. The programme includes light vocal classics from Finland that typically accompany traditional popular dancing. Experience has shown that the event will not be without surprises. In fact, enjoyable “Vappu” entertainment will be ensured by one of Finland’s best-known jazz trios, Jukka Perko, Teemu Viinikainen and Teppo Mäkynen.
Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz, conducted by, will be on the programme on 17 May in the concert that is named after the symphony. The spring season will culminate in a Love Story opera concert on 23 May, with real-life singer couple Marjukka Tepponen and Kevin Greenlaw interpreting the most sentimental love arias in stage music, selected from operas by composers such as Giuseppe Verdi, Charles Gounod and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The narrator of the evening is Finnish opera expert Aarno Cronvall, and the conductor is Alberto Hold-Garrido, specialist in opera music.