Category Archives: News

Arts in Residence January 2017 – update

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Sibelius – Master of the Orchestra

On 10–12 January 2017 a course concentrating entirely on Sibelius will take place at the Best Western Plus Connaught Hotel, Bournemouth. The primary focus of the course will be the Fifth Symphony, and attendees will hear the work in concert at the Lighthouse, Poole on 11 January, performed by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Feddeck.

The course, hosted by Terry Barfoot, will also discuss the Fourth and Sixth Symphonies, Jordens sång, The Tempest, The Oceanides and Tapiola, and there will be a discussion with past and present members of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Further information: click here for a factsheet (pdf)

Bookings: Arts in Residence, 25 Mulberry Lane, Cosham, Portsmouth, PO6 2QU
Enquiries: 02392 383356
E-mail: info@artsinresidence.co.uk
www.artsinresidence.co.uk

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Osmo Vänskä completes second Sibelius cycle

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Osmo Vänskä (Photo: © Courtney Perry, by courtesy of Minnesota Orchestra / BIS)
Osmo Vänskä (Photo: © Courtney Perry, by courtesy of Minnesota Orchestra / BIS)

Osmo Vänskä has completed his second Sibelius symphony cycle on disc with the release of Symphonies Nos 3, 6 and 7.

He conducts the Minnesota Orchestra, of which he has been principal conductor since 2003, and this is the first of the team’s recordings to have been recorded after the end of the orchestra’s extended lock-out.

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Previous releases in the series, Symphonies Nos 2 and 5 on BIS-1986, and Nos 1 and 4 on BIS-1996, have been acclaimed by critics, the latter disc winning a Grammy award in 2014.

Vänskä’s previous Sibelius cycle, with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, was hailed in the magazine Gramophone as ‘the finest survey of the past three decades’.

The disc (BIS-2006), recorded in May/June 2015 in surround sound and released as a hybrid SACD,  will be released internationally in August 2016 to coincide with the orchestra’s European tour, with performances in Lahti, Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

A recording of Kullervo by the same musicians together with the YL Male Voice Choir and soloists Lilli Paasikivi and Tommi Hakala, made at live performances in Minnesota in February, is scheduled for release at the end of 2016.

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Sibelius Festival Golfo del Tigullio – Update

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More details of the Sibelius Festival Golfo del Tigullio (artistic director: Federico Ermirio) taking place in October 2016 have been released.

Friday 30 September (morning):
Press conference and music at Villa Durazzo, S. Margherita

Saturday 1 October, 5pm, Spazio Aperto Hall, S. Margherita
Opening conference: The Inheritance of Jean Sibelius, with Federico Ermirio, composer

Friday 7 October, 9pm, N. S. della Rosa (Cathedral), S. Margherita
Opening concert: ‘Against a Pale Glow’. A Nordic Travel
Eva Alkula, kantele / Orchestra Polledro / Federico Bisio conductor
Grieg/Gudmundsson/Sibelius/Nielsen

Saturday 8 October, 5pm, Spazio Aperto Hall, S. Margherita
Lumikiteistä (Snow Crystals)
Eva Alkula, kantele / M. Del Monte, flute / D. Ermirio, cello
Karjalainen/Yli-Salomäki/Saariaho/Pärt/Laakso/Sibelius

Sunday 9 October, 5pm, N. S. del Suffragio, Recco
Le Salon Spirituel / Eva Wymola, mezzo-soprano / Andrea Carcano, piano
Tchaikovsky/Dvořák/Sibelius/Mahler/Handel/Bizet/Franck/Gounod

Sunday 9 October, 9pm, Villa Durazzo, S. Margherita
A Romantic Violin
Essi Kiiski, violin / Eduardo Andrade, piano
Sibelius/Andrade/Grieg/Maier-Röntgen

Thursday 13 October, 5pm, Spazio Aperto Hall, S. Margherita
Meeting with extracts from the film ‘Sibelius’, 2003 by Timo Koivusalo

Thursday 13 October, 9pm, Oratorio S. Erasmo, Sori
Animula Vagula
Domenico Ermirio, cello / Folke Gräsbeck, piano
Busoni/Bax/Debussy/Sibelius

Friday 14 October, 9pm, Villa Durazzo, S. Margherita
Sibelius and the Slavonic World
Eva Wymola, mezzo-soprano / Andrea Carcano piano
Tchaikovsky/Dvořák/Sibelius/Minkov/Janáček

Saturday 15 October: Piano Recitals
5pm, Piero Bozzo Hall, Bogliasco
Music by the Sea
Andrea Carcano plays Sibelius/Busoni/Rósza/Rautavaara/Grieg
9pm, N. S. del Suffragio, Recco
Sibelius &…
Folke Gräsbeck plays Busoni/Gräsbeck/Ermirio/Sibelius

Further information:
Festival website: http://sib150.wix.com/festivalsibeliusen
e-mail: sibeliusfestival@gmail.com

Click here to download the flyer as a pdf document.

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Arts in Residence – Sibelius

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Music by Sibelius will feature prominently at courses arranged by Arts in Residence in November 2016 and January 2017.

The courses are directed by Terry Barfoot. Terry writes widely on music for Britain’s leading journals, orchestras, festivals and record companies. He lectures at venues throughout the country and is publications consultant to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony is one of the featured works in the weekend course ‘The Symphony in the 20th Century’, taking place on Friday 18–Sunday 20 November 2016
at the Wroxton House Hotel near Banbury, Oxfordshire. Other symphonies under discussion are by Elgar (No. 1), Honegger (No. 2), Walton (No. 1), Shostaovich (No. 4), Vaughan Williams (No. 5), Prokofiev (No. 5) and Nielsen (No. 5). Click here for a course leaflet (Banbury).

This course is being repeated at the Grange at Oborne, near Sherborne in Dorset on 29 November – 1 December.  Click here for a course leaflet (Sherborne).

On 10–12 January 2017 a course concentrating entirely on Sibelius will take place at the Connaught Hotel, Bournemouth. The primary focus of the course will be the Fifth Symphony, and attendees will hear the work in concert at the Lighthouse, Poole on 11 January, performed by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Feddeck. Further information on this event will be published later.

Bookings: Arts in Residence, 25 Mulberry Lane, Cosham, Portsmouth, PO6 2QU
Enquiries: 02392 383356
E-mail: info@artsinresidence.co.uk
www.artsinresidence.co.uk

Sotheby’s auction results

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Pohjola-ms-fragment

Of the four Sibelius manuscripts auctioned at Sotheby’s on 24 May 2016, two found buyers.

Pohjola’s Daughter (Lot 149) was sold for £221,000 (including buyer’s premium).

Pages from The Captive Queen (Lot 152) were sold for £32,500 (including buyer’s premium).

The piano transcription of Pelléas et Mélisande (Lot 151) and pages from the Violin Concerto (Lot 150) remained unsold.

New JSW release: Overture in E major & Ballettscen

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Ov-E-maj-exc-r

The latest release in Breitkopf & Härtel’s JSW critical edition of Sibelius’s music contains two orchestral rarities: the Overture in E major, JS 145, and Ballettscen, JS 163. These are Sibelius’s first two purely orchestral works, dating from his study year in Vienna (1890–91).

This volume is edited by Tuija Wicklund. Among the new information revealed in the volume is that the ending of Ballettscen was changed: the one in the autograph manuscript differs from the one in the score made by the copyist Ernst Röllig.

The catalogue number is SON 627 and the volume costs €141.88.

More information (including downloadable introduction in English and German) and orders: https://www.breitkopf.com/work/6198/16575

See also: review of the JSW Scènes historiques (SON 625): click here

Sibelius and Elgar in Worcester

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Worerster-poster

The Worcestershire Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kevin Slade will perform a programme of Sibelius (Finlandia; Symphony No. 5) and Elgar (Violin Concerto – soloist Martin Cropper) at St Martin’s Church, London Road, Worcester at 7.30 pm on Saturday 21 May 2016.

The orchestra, which was founded over 100 years ago with the help of Edward Elgar, gave its first concert in the Public Hall, Worcester, on 26 April 1906, with Ivor Atkins conducting more than 100 players. Elgar assisted in drawing up the programme, and conducted occasionally in performances of his own works. His daughter Carice played the violin in the orchestra for many years. Today Keith Slade is the Worcestershire Symphony Orchestra’s dynamic young conductor. He studied the clarinet at the Royal Northern College of Music and is a former BBC Young Musician of the Year Woodwind Finalist.

Tickets are available via the orchestra’s website (click here): Adults £12 / Concessions £10 / Children £5 (one free with each adult ticket).

Sibelius i Korpo 2016

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The folk museum in Korpo, Finland (photo: © Västgöten / Wikimedia Creative Commons)
The fifteenth ‘Sibelius i Korpo’ festival will take place on 22–24 July 2016.

The programmes feature also music by Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924), in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of his birth. Performers at this years’s festival include:

Satu Jalas, violin
Sebastian Silén, violin
Domenico Ermirio, cello
Hedvig Paulig, soprano
Folke Gräsbeck, piano & artistic director

Provisional concert programmes are as follows:

Friday 22 July 2016 at 9 pm / Korpo gård
Busoni: Andante mit Variationen und Scherzo for piano trio
Sibelius: Florestan, suite for piano
Songs: Skogsrået; Likhet; Jubal
King Christian II, incidental music
Malinconia for cello & piano
Armas Järnefelt: Berceuse

Saturday 23 July 2016 at 6 pm / Korpo gård
Busoni: Kultaselle Variations
J.S. Bach/Busoni: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme
Sibelius: Étude for solo violin
Suite in E major for violin & piano
Sonata in F major for violin & piano
Sibelius’s granddaughter Satu Jalas will also make a presentation about her grandfather.

Sunday 24 July 2016 at 4 pm / Korpo gård
Sibelius: Piano Trio in A minor, ‘Hafträsk’
Rondino, Romance, Tanz-Idylle, Humoresque & Valse for violin & piano
Armas Järnefelt: Songs: Titania; Du (Karl Asplund); Leivo; Viel’ ois virttä tieossani
Sibelius: Songs: Jag kysser dig och ledsnar ej; Löjet var utan hem [World Première Performance]; Sommarnatt; Vem styrde hit din väg?
Danses champêtres Nos 1–3 for violin and piano

There will also be the traditional annual ceremony, with music, speeches and flowers, at the Sibelius statue in Korpo village, at 1 pm on Saturday 23 July, with festival organizer Petri Kirkkomäki and Erkki Korhonen from the Sibelius Birth Town Foundation, Hämeenlinna.

On Sunday 24 July at 11 am there will be a screening of Douglas Sivén’s documantary film ‘Sibelius i Korpo’.

Further information will be posted when available.

Ferruccio Busoni (photo: Public Domain)
Ferruccio Busoni (photo: Public Domain)

Sibelius Festival – Golfo del Tigullio e Riviera 2016

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The second Sibelius Festival – Golfo del Tigullio e Riviera (artistic director: Federico Ermirio) will take place in October 2016. The festival will include a range of concerts, with artists including Eva Alkula (kantele), Eva Wymola (mezzo-soprano), Essi Kiiski (violin), Eduardo Andrade (piano), Domenico Ermirio (cello), Andrea Carcano (piano) and Folke Gräsbeck (piano). There will also be a screening of Timo Koivusalo’s 2003 film Sibelius starring Martti Suosalo and Miina Turunen.

Visit the Festival’s website for further information.

Call for scores: ‘Pocket Ballet: Kalevala’ (2017)

The third Sibelius Festival – Golfo del Tigullio e Riviera (October 2017) will host Pocket Ballet, a project born some years ago, dedicated – as the title suggests – to the creation of events involving a small number of dancers and musicians. The first of these, Isofromatem, was premièred in Italy in 2014, introducing new works by four living composers from Italy, Greece, Israel and Finland. For 2017 a new ballet project, with a duration of less then one hour, inspired by the Finnish epic poem Kalevala, will be realized by choreographer Peter Larsen. The music will be entrusted to an instrumental trio: accordion, viola and kantele. All Finnish composers born after 31 December 1981 are eligible to submit scores for consideration.

For further information please click the link below to download a pdf document
Pocket Ballet – Kalevala – Call for Scores 2017

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Major Sibelius manuscripts at auction

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Pelléas-ms-copy

Several major Sibelius manuscripts are being sold at auction by Sotheby’s, London, on 24 May 2016.

It is rare for major Sibelius manuscripts to be sold, and even rarer for a number of important manuscripts to be offered at the same time. All of the works in question are among the pieces that were published by Robert Lienau in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Foremost among these is the autograph manuscript of Pohjola’s Daughter; Sotheby’s remark that ‘no manuscript of this importance and calibre has appeared on the market for over ten years’. Also on sale are the primary sources for the final version of the Violin Concerto (although most of the autograph score is lost) and the complete piano transcription of the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande. Finally there is a set of eight autograph fragments, plus a score containing other revisions, pertaining to the male choir version of the patriotic cantata The Captive Queen.

The Pelléas manuscript is of particular interest because it contains two previously unknown piano transcriptions of movements that were omitted from the published piano version of the suite.

The estimated price range for these items ranges from £30,000–50,000 (The Captive Queen) to £200,000–300,000 (Pohjola’s Daughter).

Links to Sotheby’s auction pages:
Pohjola’s Daughter (Lot 149) — — Violin Concerto (Lot 150)
Pelléas et Mélisande (Lot 151) — — The Captive Queen (Lot 152)