The conductor Yuri Nitta, President of the Sibelius Society of Japan, has secured a new appointment. She will be a regular conductor of the Aichi Chamber Orchestra (Nagoya) for three years, from 2015 to 2017. This orchestra is of chamber size and of high quality, and together with Yuri Nitta will focus on Nordic music over the coming three years. Her inaugural concert on 27th February 2015 includes works by Mendelssohn and Niels W. Gade, and next one will include music by Sibelius and Nielsen.
Sibelius and the World of Art
Helsinki’s Ateneum Art Museum is mounting a special exhibition to mark the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
The exhibition explores the links between the composer’s work and the art scene of his time, covering Sibelius’s youth and his international breakthrough, fantasies and myths about the famous composer, as well as his symphonic landscapes and nature motifs. The portraits in the exhibition show us the composer both as a young genius and as the subject of the unique Sibelius Monument of the late 1960s.
The exhibition runs from 17th October 2014 until 22nd March 2015, and is produced by the Ateneum Art Museum in collaboration with the Ainola Foundation. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in Finnish, Swedish and English.
Read more here: Sibelius and the World of Art
Sixth International Jean Sibelius Conference in Hämeenlinna, 2015
The Sixth International Jean Sibelius Conference will be organized by the Sibelius Birth Town Foundation in Hämeenlinna, Finland on 4th–8th December 2015. The 150th anniversary of the birth of Jean Sibelius will be celebrated in Finland and all over the world during the course of the year. The organizing committee is pleased to invite all friends of Sibelius’s music to Hämeenlinna, ‘the World Capital of Sibelius’.
The call for papers may be downloaded here:
Lyndon Jenkins – A Personal Tribute by John Davis
Lyndon Jenkins, John Davis and Peter Donohoe
at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 14th December 2011
I have completely lost count of the number of times that I met up with the one and only Lyndon Jenkins. I first heard his unique style of oration when, many years ago, he addressed our South Devon Society, back in the days when we were called the ‘Torbay Gramophone Society’.
Lyndon was the most spontaneous orator that I’ve personally encountered, and his encyclopedic knowledge of countless aspects of the music scene was a treasure to behold. Lyndon introduced me, often in the green room of Symphony Hall, Birmingham, to countless professional musicians over the years, but one meeting was so special for me that it will stay with me for ever and a day. On one of my many group excursions to musical events (in the UK, across Europe and beyond) we were just concluding lunch in the Italian restaurant in Birmingham’s Symphony Hall complex (an occasion on which Lyndon introduced me to that day’s concert’s conductor, Sakari Oramo) when Lyndon took me up to a studio where a young Chinese lady was playing the piano. I was introduced to Di Xiao and then, with a signal from Lyndon, this lady played ‘especially for me’ (there were only the three of us present) the Impromptu Op.5 No.5 by Sibelius. None of my friends can believe me when I say that at the conclusion I was speechless! Di Xiao had never heard of this piece a fortnight earlier, when Lyndon introduced her to its glories, and she played it from memory! Fortunately this is available on a CD that Di Xiao has recorded*, made in Symphony Hall – my copy is autographed by Di Xiao herself.
The music world has lost a giant, and Lyndon Jenkins will never be forgotten.
John J. Davis
* Di Xiao Presents – Ecstasy Records 08DX01 – Music by Mozart, Ravel, Sibelius, Nielsen, Chen and Albéniz
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