EPIPHANY CONCERT 2023
Once again, the time has come for Berwaldhallen’s traditional Festive Epiphany concert. Welcome inside to enjoy a musical firework of atmospheric music, gala and glamour. The Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir, together with the brilliant soloists Katija Dragojevic and Tobias Westman, offer a surprisingly packed program as usual. All under the direction of conductor Johannes Gustavsson.
Friday’s concert will be broadcast live on Sveriges Radio P2 and recorded for SVT. The concert will be broadcasted on SVT on January 7, 19.00.
Conductor- and solist change: Johannes Gustavsson replaces Alondra de la Parra as conductor and Tobias Westman replaces Joachim Bäckström.
Participants
The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is known worldwide as one of Europe’s most versatile orchestras with an exciting and varied repertoire and a constant striving to break new ground The multi-award-winning orchestra has been praised for its exceptional, wide-ranging musicianship as well as collaborations with the world’s foremost composers, conductors and soloists.
Permanent home of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra since 1979 is Berwaldhallen, the Swedish Radio’s concert hall. In addition to the audience in the hall, the orchestra reaches many many listeners on the radio and the web and through it´s partnership with EBU. Several concerts are also broadcast and streamed on Berwaldhallen Play and with Swedish Television, offering the audience more opportunities to come as close as possible to one of the world’s top orchestras.
“The orchestra has a unique combination of humility, sensibility and musical imagination”, says Daniel Harding, Music Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2007. “I have never had a concert with the orchestra where they haven’t played as though their lives depended on it!”
The first radio orchestra was founded in 1925, the same year that the Swedish Radio Service began its broadcasts. The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra received its current name in 1967. Through the years, the orchestra has had several distinguished Music Directors. Two of them, Herbert Blomstedt and Esa-Pekka Salonen, have since been appointed Conductors Laureate.
For more than 90 years, the Swedish Radio Choir has contributed to the development of the Swedish a cappella tradition. Under the leadership of legendary conductor Eric Ericson, the choir earned great international renown. It is still hailed as one of the best choirs in the world. The choir members’ ability to switch between powerful solo performances and seamlessly integrating themselves in the ensemble creates a unique and dynamic instrument praised by critics and music lovers alike, as well as by the many guest conductors who explore and challenge the choir’s possibilities.
Permanent home of the Swedish Radio Choir since 1979 is Berwaldhallen, the Swedish Radio’s concert hall. In addition to the seated audience, the choir reaches millions of listeners on the radio and the web through Klassiska konserten i P2. Several concerts are also broadcast and streamed on Berwaldhallen Play, offering the audience more opportunities to come as close as possible to one of the world’s top choirs.
With the 2020–2021 season, Kaspars Putniņš begins his tenure as the tenth Music Director of the Swedish Radio Choir. Since January 2019, Marc Korovitch is the choirmaster of the Swedish Radio Choir with responsibility for the ensemble’s continued artistic development. Two of the orchestra’s former Music Directors, Tõnu Kaljuste and Peter Dijkstra, were appointed Conductors Laureate in November 2019. Both maintain a close relationship with the choir and make regular guest appearances.
The Swedish Radio Choir was founded the same year as the Swedish Radio Service began its broadcasts and the choir had its first concert in May 1925. Right from the start, the choir had high ambitions with a conscious aim to perform contemporary music.
Johannes Gustavsson originally trained as a violist, his strong passion for conducting and excellent leadership skills led him to study conducting at the Norwegian Academy of Music with Ole Kristian Ruud and Olav Anton Thommessen, Jorma Panula and Simon Streatfield. Gustavsson works regularly with all major Nordic orchestras, being in demand as an interpreter of extensive symphonic and operatic repertoire. As a keen supporter of contemporary music, Gustavsson has conducted over 50 premiers of Nordic orchestral music.
Throughout his career, he has held senior conducting posts at the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, the Västerås Sinfonietta, the Nordic Chamber Orchestra, and was chief conductor at the Wermland Opera and at the Oulu Symphony Orchestra until 2021. Together with Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Gustavsson has had a collaboration for over 20 years, resulting in over 30 concerts and a plethora of recordings.
Johannes Gustavsson has been a prizewinner at the Solti Conducting Competition in Frankfurt and the Toscanini Competition in Parma, and was the first artist to be awarded both the Swedish Conductor’s Prize and the Herbert Blomstedt Award.
Malin Broman is First Concertmaster of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and an internationally sought-after soloist, having visited the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, and the Gothenburg Symphony, among others.
From 2015 to 2020, Malin served as Artistic Director of the Musica Vitae Chamber Orchestra, and succeeded Sakari Oramo as Artistic Director of the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra in 2019. She has also appeared as musical director/soloist with Tapiola Sinfonietta, Scottish Ensemble, Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Västerås Sinfonietta, Trondheim Soloists, Lapland Chamber Orchestra and the ACO Collective – the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s string ensemble.
Over the last few years, Broman has performed world premieres of violin concertos by Britta Byström, Andrea Tarrodi and Daniel Nelson. She has recorded over 30 discs, among them Carl Nielsen’s and Britta Byström’s concertos. Her recording of Mendelssohn’s double concerto for violin and piano with Musica Vitae and Simon Crawford Phillips was nominated for a Grammy in 2019. She has also made many recordings with celebrated ensemble the Kungsbacka Piano Trio.
Among Malin Broman’s latest recordings can be mentioned an album with music by Laura Netzel, as well as a recording with the Ostrobothnia Chamber Orchestra, Stockholm Diary, with works by, among others, Salonen and Stravinsky. In the spring of 2020, Broman filmed a noted recording of her playing all eight parts of Felix Mendelssohn’s String Octet. Since then she has made another two recordings according to a similar concept, A Room of One´s Own to Malin Broman x 8 by Britta Byström, and a recording with the solo contra bassist of The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rick Stotijn.
Malin Broman is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and Professor of Viola at the Edsbergs Institute of Music. In the spring of 2019, she was awarded H.M. the King’s eighth size medal for her considerable contributions to the Swedish music industry. She plays a Stradivarius violin from 1709 and a Bajoni viola from 1861, borrowed from the Järnåker Foundation.
Ella Petersson is the head of music and language at the Swedish Radio P2. Prior to this, Petersson has been the musical editor at SVT, in charge of the classical music and music documentaries, and a well-known host for several TV and radio shows.
Approximate concert length: 2 h 10 min (with intermission)
Program
Leonard Bernstein: overture from West Side Story
Federico Chueca: Tango de la Menegilda from La Gran Vìa
Kerby Shaw: Celtic Dance
Carl Orff: Reie from Carmina Burana
Carl Orff: In trutina from Carmina Burana
Manuel de Falla: Danza ritual del Fuego from El amor brujo
Astor Piazzolla: Yo soy Maria from Maria de Buenos Aires
Joby Talbot: The weeding cake from Like water for chocolate
Leonard Bernstein: Maria from West Side Story
Intermission
Arturo Marquez: Danzón nr 2
Pjotr Tjajkovskij: Kuda kuda kuda from Eugen Onegin
Nils Lindberg: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day from O, mistress mine
Antonio Vivaldi: Sento in seno ur Il Giustino
Joby Talbot: Campfires from Like water for cocholate
Alban Berg: Die Nachtigall: für 16 Stimmen from Sieben frühe Lieder
Luigi Denza: Funiculi funicula
Emmerich (Imre) Kalman: Weisst du es noch (Heller Jubel) from The Gypsy Princess
Igor Stravinskij: Berceuse & final from the Firebird suite
Tickets
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