As part of our occasional series ‘Me and my Sibelius’, an interview with the conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste, made by Sibelius One in Cologne in December 2015, is now available.
Interview with Jukka-Pekka Saraste
Sibelius discography: help wanted
A Sibelius discography is being compiled that will be made available via this website.
In the interests of making this discography as complete as possible, all Sibelius enthusiasts and Sibelius One members are invited to send in details of recordings in their collection and we shall add the information to what is already on file here.
At present work is in a preliminary stage. As soon as possible we shall make available a file listing those recordings already included, and alternative methods of submitting information.
In the meantime, if you would like to send details of your discs already, we would ask for as much as possible of the following information to be included:
- Work title and opus/JS/HUL number
- If only part of a work is performed, please specify which part(s)
- Soloist(s)
- Ensemble/orchestra
- Chorus
- Conductor
- Recording date
- Live recording?
- Release date
- Record label and catalogue number
- Format (e.g. LP, CD, mono/stereo)
- Country of release
- Any other relevant information
Please send the information to Ian Maxwell (click here).
Thank you very much for your help!
Would Sibelius Lie to You (Quiz)
Merry Christmas
A very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all members and friends of Sibelius One!
Here is a selection of memories from the Sibelius 150th anniversary year.
(Click to enlarge photos)
Third International Sibelius Singing Competition
Sibelius One concerts
Sibelius in Korpo
Lahti International Sibelius Festival
11th International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition
6th International Jean Sibelius Conference
New books about Sibelius and his world
And much more…
Sibelius Medal awarded to Pekka Helasvuo
The Sibelius Medal of the Sibelius Society of Finland has been awarded to Pekka Helasvuo.
The medal was presented by Lauri Tarasti, outgoing president of the Sibelius Society of Finland, at a reception in Hämeenlinna Town Hall on Saturday 5th December 2015 as part of the Sixth International Jean Sibelius Conference.
Pekka Helasvuo, Licentiate of Music, has worked as a violinist in the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor and principal lecturer of orchestral and chamber music studies at the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. His subject of licentiate work was the Orchestration of the Songs by Jean Sibelius (Sibelius-Academy, Helsinki 2007). Helasvuo is currently working as an editor of the string orchestra works (Series III) for the critical edition of Jean Sibelius works (JSW).
This was the last presentation of the Sibelius Medal in its current form. A new design of medal will be used from 2016 onwards.
Happy Birthday Sibelius
Sibelius One joins Sibelius fans, scholars and musicians all over the world in celebrating the 150th anniversary of Sibelius’s birth today, 8th December 2015.
Watch the exclusive Happy Birthday Sibelius video produced by Leon Chia, Sibelius One’s International Co-ordinator, here (live at 00.01 Finnish time, 8-Dec-2015):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAoCWANKD2w
Christel Lee wins Sibelius Violin Competition
Christel Lee has won the 11th International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki. The prize winners are:
1st prize €25 000 Christel Lee, USA
2nd prize €18 000 Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, Austria
3rd prize €12 000 Friederike Starkloff, Germany
Three other finalists, Mayumi Kanagawa (USA), Minami Yoshida (Japan) and Nancy Zhou (USA), received a prize of € 2000 each.
The Foundation of Helsinki Conservatory of Music awarded a special prize of €3000 to Emmanuel Tjeknavorian for the best interpretation of Sibelius Violin Concerto
The City of Järvenpää awarded a special prize of €2000 to Friederike Starkloff for the best interpretation of a commissioned piece in second round. The commissioned piece was one of the award-winning pieces from the Jean Sibelius Composition Competition 2015.
The best Finnish contestant Pekko Pulakka received the special prize from Yleisradio: an invitation to make a recording for Yle.
Christel Lee will perform at the following concerts in December:
- with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conductor Hannu Lintu, at the Jean Sibelius 150th Anniversary Concert in Hämeenlinna on 8th December.
- with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor John Storgårds, on 10th December in Birmingham and 12th December in Dublin.
Source: www.sibeliuscompetition.fi
Sixth International Sibelius Conference, Hämeenlinna 2015
The Sixth International Jean Sibelius Conference will take place in at Verkatehdas in Hämeenlinna, Finland, from 4th to 8th December 2015.
The conference will gather eminent scholars from all over the world with a wide variety of presentations on many different aspects of Sibelius’s life and music.
The presentations, which will take place in two parallel sessions throughout, will be as follows:
- James Hepokoski: Early Sibelius, Primitivist-Modernism, ‘News of War’
- Les Black: Dorian Departure
- Aare Tool: Jean Sibelius and the Modes of Limited Transposition
- Benedict Taylor: Monotonality and Scalar Modulation in Sibelius’s Tapiola
- Philip Ross Bullock: Sibelius Reception in Britain, 1901–1939: Centre Periphery in the Musical Construction of the North
- Laura Gray: The Tipping Point and the Rise of the Sibelius Cult in England
- Helena Tyrväinen: Sibelius and the French Press in the 1920s: Initiatives, Mediators and Interpretations
- Edward Clark: Sibelius and contemporary composers
- Martti Laitinen: Why Kajanus went to St Petersburg
- Vesa Kurkela and Olli Heikkinen: Sibelius as popular composer: Music by Sibelius in Kajanus’s popular concerts
- Vesa Sirén: (topic to be determined)
- Kaarina Kilpiö: Soundtrack for ‘The New Military Branch’. Jean Sibelius’s music in Finnish propaganda films during World War II
- Charris Efthimiou: On the instrumentation of bass and melody line in Jean Sibelius’s early symphonic poems (1892–1894)
- Pekka Helasvuo: The formation of the mode of expression of dynamic and articulation markings in the notation of Jean Sibelius
- Juhani Alesaro: Analyzing Sibelius’s Satz
- Barry Wiener: Dahlhaus’s Paradigm and Sibelius Reception
- Ferruccio Tammaro: War-Symphonies and Peace-Symphonies: Sibelius’s Fifth
- Antonin Servière: Reflecting Sibelius’s Legacy in Today’s Composer’s Mind
- Nors S. Josephson: Sibelius at the Crossroads: Old Paths Leading To New Creative Departures in His Second Symphony (1901–1902)
- Sakari Ylivuori: From a Bon vivant to a War Hero – The Narrative Structure of Sandels (Op. 28)
- Lauri Suurpää: Unconfirmed Pastoral and Denial of Threat in the Slow Movement of Sibelius’s First Symphony
- Olli Väisälä: Sibelius’s Revision of the First Movement of the Violin Concerto: Strengthening Tonal Structure while Removing Tonal Clichés
- Kimmo Sarje: Sibelius and the Modern
- Ron Weidberg: Sibelius and Schoenberg
- Daniel Grimley: ‘I sing another song’: Sibelius, Hofmannsthal and the Subjectivities
of Jedermann - Ilkka Oramo: Sibelius’s Eighth Symphony – fact and fiction
- Marc Vignal: Sibelius and Mahler
- Jorma Daniel Lünenbürger: Jean Sibelius and the Cello
- Tuija Wicklund: Sibelius and Böcklin
- Anna Pulkkis: Sibelius’s Loulou Andantino – a Souvenir Composition with a Mystery
- Timo Virtanen: Sibelius’s Sketches for the Violin Concerto
- Gustav Djupsjöbacka: There are several ways of putting it
- Carola Finkel: The metamorphoses of Svartsjukans nätter
- Sanna Iitti: The Representation of Emotions in the songs Våren flyktar hastigt and Svarta rosor
- Leah Broad: Forests, Fires, and Factories: Sibelius and the Mechanical
- Eero Tarasti: How Sibelius Became Sibelius – Observations and Notes on the Emergence of His Style
- Tim Howell: Jean Sibelius: Progressive or Modernist?
- Tim Jackson: ‘The Company You Keep’: Recipients of the Honorary Doctorates from the 1936 Heidelberg Celebration – Sibelius and Those Honoured Alongside Him
- Mart Humal: Sibelius’s Incidental Music for The Tempest: Ariel’s Five Songs as a Cycle
- Veijo Murtomäki: Did Sibelius mean (some of) his miniature opuses to be taken as suites?
- Andrew Barnett: The BIS Sibelius Edition
- Benjamin T. Hilger: Sibelius’s Second Symphony Recordings – Tendencies of conducting within history
Among numerous live music performances that will take place during the conference is a concert by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu, featuring the winner of the Eleventh International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition. The works to be performed are Tapiola, the Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 2. To check ticket availability for the concert: click here.
On the organizing committee of the conference are Erkki Korhonen (chairman), Andrew Barnett, Anna Krohn, Veijo Murtomäki, Eero Tarasti and Timo Virtanen.
Storgårds conducts Sibelius in Birmingham
The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor John Storgårds will be performing an all-Sibelius programme in Birmingham on Thursday 10 December 2015 (7.30 pm) at Symphony Hall, Birmingham.
The programme will consist of the following works:
En saga
Violin Concerto
Karelia Suite
Symphony No. 7
The soloist in the Violin Concerto will be the winner of the 2015 International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition.
At 6.15 pm there will be a pre-concert conversation with John Storgårds.
Ticket prices start at £9.50, and can be booked online by clicking here, or by calling the Box Office on 0121 345 0600.
Docklands Sinfonia Sibelius Anniversary Concert
![Sibelius-concert-poster[1]-copy](https://sibeliusone.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Sibelius-concert-poster1-copy.jpg)
The Docklands Sinfonia conducted by Spencer Down will celebrate the 150th annivesary of Sibelius’s birth with a concert at St Anne’s, Limehouse, Three Colt Street, London, featuring the Karelia Suite and Lemminkäinen, on Friday 4th December at 7.30 pm.
The renowned author and illustrator James Mayhew will bring a special touch to the concert with live illustrations of the stories behind the music as the orchestra plays.
Docklands Sinfonia will also continue its strong track record of promoting new music with the world première of Michael Heath’s Cello Concerto, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Gregory Walmsley.
Programme:
Jean Sibelius: Karelia Suite
Michael Heath: Cello Concerto (world première)
Jean Sibelius: Lemminkäinen
Docklands Sinfonia
Spencer Down conductor
Gregory Walmsley cello
James Mayhew illustrator
Docklands Sinfonia is young and pioneering orchestra which has become a major cultural force in the Docklands – bringing high quality music to the area, staging ground-breaking concerts and creating a lasting legacy by inspiring generations of young people. Since its formation in 2009, Docklands Sinfonia has enjoyed incredible success with performances for the Queen at Buckingham Palace and with Grammy-award winner Imogen Heap at the Royal Albert Hall. It has appeared on the BBC Radio 3 and BBC1.
The orchestra has recorded albums for leading artists such as Katie Melua and has performed with world-renowned classical artists such as Alison Balsom, Leonard Elschenbroich and Elin Manahan-Thomas as well as the English National Ballet, Royal Opera House and National Youth Theatre. Docklands Sinfonia aims to promote young musicians through commissioning new works and is committed to inspiring future generations of young people by introducing them to the joy of live orchestral music.
Spencer Down is the driving force behind Docklands Sinfonia. He has been orchestral director for high-profile events including a concert for the Queen in the ballroom at Buckingham Palace and the world premiere of Grammy award-winning singer Imogen Heap’s ‘Love the Earth’ at the Royal Albert Hall. He has worked with artists from leading organizations including the English National Ballet, Royal Opera House, London Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and is brass co-ordinator and assistant conductor at the Junior Guildhall.
Where and when
Friday 4th December at 7.30 pm.
St Anne’s, Limehouse, Three Colt Street, London E14 7HP
Tickets: £10 (Concessions) £12 (Advanced) £15 (On the door) – click here to book tickets.
Source: Docklands Sinfonia