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Nordic Weeks: Sibelius – Harding – Dueñas

Jean Sibelius only wrote one violin concerto, but nevertheless his D minor concerto from 1904 is regarded by many as a success. Renowned violinist María Dueñas performs it here with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and its music director Daniel Harding, who also presents Sibelius’ symphonies nos. 1 and 7.

Listen to the concert from Lahti on September 8 in Swedish Radio P2 Friday September 29 after 20.00, or watch the concert from Berwaldhallen on September 6 on Berwaldhallen Play Friday September 29 at 19:00.

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SWEDISH RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

dot 2023/2024

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The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is a multiple-award-winning ensemble renowned for its high artistic standard and stylistic breadth, as well as collaborations with the world’s finest composers, conductors, and soloists. It regularly tours all over Europe and the world and has an extensive and acclaimed recording catalogue.

Daniel Harding has been Music Director of the SRSO since 2007, and since 2019 also its Artistic Director. His tenure will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. Two of the orchestra’s former chief conductors, Herbert Blomstedt and Esa-Pekka Salonen, have since been named Conductors Laureate, and continue to perform regularly with the orchestra.

The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, and is a cornerstone of Swedish public service broadcasting. Its concerts are heard weekly on the Swedish classical radio P2 and regularly on national public television SVT. Several concerts are also streamed on-demand on Berwaldhallen Play and broadcast globally through the EBU.

Daniel Harding is Music and Artistic Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, with whom in 2022 he celebrated his 15-year anniversary. In the 2014/2015 season, he devised and curated the celebrated Interplay Festival, featuring concerts and related inspirational talks with renowned artists and academics. As Artistic Director, he continues this type of influential programming. Harding is also Conductor Laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom he has worked for over 20 years, and Music Director of Youth Music Culture, The Greater Bay Area in China. The 2024/2025 season will be his first as Music Director at the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

Harding is a regular visitor to the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Staatskapelle Dresden and the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. In the US, he has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony. A renowned opera conductor, he has led acclaimed productions at the Teatro alla Scala Milan, Wiener Staatsoper, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and at the Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg Festivals. He was Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, the Anima Mundi festival of Pisa, and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Daniel Harding tours regularly with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing at prestigious venues all over Europe and the world, and has recorded several acclaimed and award-winning albums with the orchestra. His tenure as Music and Artistic Director will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. “It is increasingly rare that the relationship between a conductor and an orchestra not only lasts for more than a decade, but keeps growing,” he says about working with the orchestra.

In 2002, Harding was awarded the title Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government, and in 2017 nominated to the position Officier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2012, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 2021, he was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Daniel Harding grew up in Oxford, England, and played trumpet before taking up conducting in his late teens. He is also, since 2016, a qualified airline pilot.

Violinist María Dueñas enchants her audiences with the breathtaking variety of colours she elicits from her instrument, with her technical skills, artistic maturity and bold interpretations.

María Dueñas studies with the world-renowned violin teacher Boris Kuschnir at the University of Music and Performing Arts in her adopted home of Vienna. Born in Granada in 2022, she was accepted at the conservatory in her hometown at the age of seven. In 2014, a scholarship abroad took her to Dresden for two years, where she caught the attention of conductor Marek Janowski, at whose invitation she later made her debut as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

After a series of first prizes at prestigious international competitions, María Dueñas caused a sensation in 2021, particularly at the Menuhin Violin Competition, where she won first prize and the audience prize. In April 2023, she was awarded the prestigious Premio Princesa de Girona de las Artes y las Letras in her home country.

The versatile musician, who also is a passionate composer, is now in demand worldwide and has already performed with many major orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestra, under important conductors such as Marek Janowski, Manfred Honeck, Vladimir Spivakov, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Gustavo Gimeno and Michael Sanderling. She enjoys a regular collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel.

As an exclusive artist of Deutsche Grammophon, she released her first album Beethoven and Beyond in May 2023 with Manfred Honeck and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra to great critical acclaim. The recording focuses on the Beethoven Violin Concerto with her own cadenzas.

María Dueñas plays the Nicolò Gagliano violin of 17?4, on loan by the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, and the Stradivari ”Camposelice” of 1710, loaned to her by the Nippon Music Foundation.

Approximate duration: 2 hrs with intermission