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Turku Philharmonic Orchestra´s spring season is published on! The season will be full of talented piano soloists, concert programmes that orchestra´s own musicians have planned, a wonderful May Day concert full of love with Johanna Försti and Vesa-Matti Loiri´s Path of the Poet -concert that was already published in October. For children the orchestra offers delightful Mimmit-concert in March and two concerts of the popular Children´s Music Salon in April.
Maestro Leif Segerstam and Matti Salminen, king of the basses, open the season on Thursday 11th and Friday 12th of January. In the opening concert we will hear Ludwig van Beethoven´s Egmont, Max Reger´s tone poem die Toteninsel and Modest Musorgski´s Songs of dances and death. Powerful and dramatic Egmont is based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe´s play of the same name. This popular suite of music for the stage accompanies the tale of the heroic life of Count Egmont in the 16th century. Matti Salminen is one of the most remarkable bass singers of our time. The previous time Matti Salminen performed in the Turku Concert Hall was August 2017 in Turku Music Festival´s Parsifal concerts.
In the spring we will hear six piano soloists in six concerts. On Friday 2nd of March Paavali Jumppanen will interpret Johannes Brahms´ titanic Piano Concerto in a concert, where we will also hear a premiere performance of Chief Conductor Leif Segerstam´s Symphony no 311. Jumppanen also performs in a chamber music concert Tour de force on Saturday 3rd of March. Víkingur Ólafsson, a pianist dubbed the “Glenn Gould of Iceland” by the New York Times, performs on Thursday 8th of March a piece called Processions by Icelandic composer and conductor Daníel Bjarnason. Pianist Eldar Nebolsin performs together with the orchestra´s Principal Guest Conductor Julian Rachlin and interprets Ludwig van Beethoven´s Piano Concerto no 4 on Thursday 15th and Friday 16th of March. A Norwegian pianist Håvard Gimse takes a hold of Edvard Grieg´s Piano Concerto on Friday the 6th of April. The piece is full of wild power and passionate beauty. Olli Mustonen takes the stage in his brilliant fashion, doubling as both conductor and soloist and performs Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart´s Piano Concerto no 26 on 19th and 20th of April. Brilliant Martina Filjak plays a Piano Concerto by Maurice Ravel on Friday the 18th of May in Mikko Heiniö’s 70th-birthday concert.
Julian Rachlin conducts the Philharmonics twice during the spring season. On 15th and 16th of March we will hear the wonderful gems of Viennese Classical and on 12th and 13th of April we will see Rachlin take a double role as a conductor and violinist. In the April´s concert Rachlin interprets Pjotr Tchaikovsky´s bubbling Violin Concerto.
Julian Rachlin´s two year contract as the Principal Guest Conductor of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra began in autumn 2017. Before the appointment Rachlin had performed three times with the Philharmonics. All of Rachlin´s concerts in Turku have been highly successful in Turku and sold out nearly without an exception.
Cellist compete in February and Young Soloists in May – most talented young cellists and future star soloists will take the stage with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra in the spring. Popular Klaus Mäkelä conducts the Finals of the Turku Cello Competition in 22nd and 23rd of February and József Hárs will conduct the Young Soloists Concert in May 9th in the Sigyn Hall.
In the concert Music in the Cathedral 8th of February we will hear a concert programme entirely planned by the musicians of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra. Violinists Maija Kontunen, Ilana Gothóni, Marjaana Holva, Susanna Suorttanen and Juha Viljanen and cellist Roi Ruottinen perform in the concert. The concert consists of the finest String Concertos of Antonio Vivaldi and Georg Friedrich Händel. Appropriately for an Olympic year, the programme opens with the brisk overture to Vivaldi’s opera L’Olimpiade. The orchestra´s musicians also perform programmes that they have planned themselves in the Chamber Music Concerts: Tour de force 3rd of March, 360° 8th of April and Requiem for Fanny 6th of May.
“The year 2018 will mark 340 years from the birth of Vivaldi. In addition to that 2018 is an Olympic year, so L´Olimpiade suits well to the theme. Vivaldi has a lot of fine works and also more unknown concertos that are not played that often. It is also great, when orchestra´s talented musicians have a change to perform as soloists”, comments Maija Kontunen, main programme planner of the Music in the Cathedral concert.
The whole programme of the spring season is published in www.tfo.fi. You can take a copy of the printed season brochure for example from the Concert Hall and the sales points of Lippupiste. Tickets for spring season will be released on Friday November 17th 2017. Season tickets will be on sale 14.11.2017–12.1.2018.
You can buy tickets to the concerts from the sales points of Lippupiste or from the web shop www.lippu.fi. In Turku you can buy your tickets from Ars Musica, Turku Concert Hall that is open from Mon to Fri from 11 am to 5 pm. We also have sales at the door one hour before the events, if there are remaining tickets. Turku Concert Hall, Aninkaistenkatu 9, 20100 Turku.
