Finnish Music Day

Jan Söderblom

With a dynamic background as a performer, including solo, chamber music and orchestral leading, exploration is the driving force behind Jan Söderblom’s path as a conductor. Currently Artistic Director of the Finnish Chamber Orchestra, he is also Artistic Director of three annual festivals and a frequent guest conductor with the major Finnish orchestras, including the Helsinki Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tampere Philharmonic, Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Tapiola Sinfonietta. He also holds the position of 1st Concertmaster of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and also performs as guest leader and play-director with several Scandinavian orchestras.

Jan Söderblom started playing the violin at an early age. Growing up a boom time in Finnish musical life he studied with teachers such as Géza Szilvay and Ari Angervo. A hunger for international exchange led to further studies with Endre Wolf, the Amadeus Quartet, Sandor Végh and David Takeno. He went on to perform as soloist with, among others, the Swedish Radio Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra and Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. Having a fundamental passion for chamber music, he was a founding member of the New Helsinki Quartet.

While forging a career as a soloist and chamber musician, Söderblom enrolled at the Sibelius Academy’s renowned conducting class with Jorma Panula and Leif Segerstam. Consequently, his dual career took a turn towards conducting, with engagements including all major Finnish orchestras as well as Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orquesta RTVE, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, MDR Sinfonieorkester (Leipzig), Danish National Chamber Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra KORK, Norrköping and Helsingborg Symphony Orchestras and Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine. In opera, Jan Söderblom has collaborated with Swedish Royal Opera, Norrlandsoperan and Finnish National Opera; he conducted the premieres of Thomas Jennefelt’s Sport och fritid, Svall by Daniel Börtz and Veli-Matti Puumala’s Anna Liisa, the recording of which was also released on Ondine to critical acclaim, including Editor’s Choice in Gramophone magazine.

www.jansoderblom.fi

Inmo Yang

By the time he won the International Sibelius Violin Competition this year, Inmo Yang (b. 1995) had already been stunning audiences the world over, having taken top prizes in numerous other competitions. Hailed by some as the most talented violin virtuoso of the new generation, he has also won acclaim for his faultless technique and warm tone. He has performed on Paganini’s own violin with many of the leading European and US orchestras and in 2019 released a live recording of the 24 Paganini Caprices.

Born in Indonesia to South Korean parents who mostly just listened to music, Yang nevertheless began taking violin lessons with a local student when he was five. He was the soloist with the Korean Radio Orchestra when he was only 15, studied at the Korean National Institute for the Gifted in Arts and with Mariam Fried in Boston. In 2019, he moved to Berlin to study with Antje Weithaas at the Hochschule für Music Hanns Eisler.

Inmo Yang plays a Guadagnini violin from 1722 kindly loaned by Jane Ng through the Beare’s International Violin Society for the Sibelius Violin Competition.

Jean Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47

Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) made several attempts at composing a Violin Concerto before he was satisfied. Being himself a violinist, he wanted it to be a momentous, monumental work using every trick known to the violinist. Its first public performance proved to be too much for the soloist, Viktor Nováček, who had not received the music until the last minute. The criticism levelled at the first version was justified, though it has later found a place in the concert repertoire. Sibelius was well aware of the shortcomings. He therefore cut out some of the superfluous passages, removed the stumbling blocks in the violin part and one whole solo cadenza. The new version was more compact and kinder to the soloist, while sacrificing very little of the virtuosity. The second premiere was given in 1905 by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Richard Strauss and the soloist was Karel Halíř. Donald Tovey the critic once called the main theme of the last of the three movement a “polonaise for polar bears”.

Pekka Kuusisto

Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto is Artistic Director of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Co-Director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra from the 23/24 season. He is also Artistic Partner with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, a Collaborative Partner of the San Francisco Symphony, and Artistic Best Friend of Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

 An advocate of contemporary music, he recently performed the world premiere of Bryce Dessner’s Violin Concerto with HR Sinfonieorchester, and later with the Philharmonia and San Francisco Symphony orchestras, and Orchestre de Paris. He performed the world premiere of Thomas Adès’ Märchentänze for violin and orchestra with the Finnish Radio Symphony orchestra and later with Barcelona Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony and Danish Radio Symphony orchestras. He recently premiered works by Sauli Zinovjev, Daníel Bjarnason, Anders Hillborg, Philip Venables and Andrea Tarrodi.

As a soloist, in the 2022-23 season Kuusisto debuted with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and will perform with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. He returns to orchestras such as Cleveland, Cincinnati Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and the Philharmonia. He is also Sinfonieorchester Basel’s Artist in Residence.

As a conductor, performance highlights this season include Helsinki Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, Philharmonia and City of Birmingham Symphony orchestras, as well as Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

In 2022, Kuusisto releases his first album as conductor, partnering with Vilde Frang and Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen presenting the Stravinsky and Beethoven Concerti (Warner Classics), as well as the world premiere recording of Thomas Adès Märchentänze for violin and orchestra (Ondine) with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Nicholas Collon. Other recordings include Nico Muhly’s violin concerto, Shrink, for Pentatone, Ades’ Violin Concerto for Deutsche Grammophon, and Hillborg’s Bach Materia and Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 and 4 for BIS.

Jaakko Kuusisto: Symphony 

Equally renowned as a solo violinist, leader of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, composer, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Oulu Symphony and Chief Conductor of the Kuopio Symphony, Jaakko Kuusisto (1974–2022) was a major figure on the Finnish musical scene. He wrote music in a variety of styles and will long be remembered for his brilliant arrangements of songs by such pop icons as Abba and Queen and his opera Ice. A commission from Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra was the answer to a long-term dream to compose a symphony, and he was able to write parts of it before his untimely death. The symphony was completed by his brother Pekka and score technician Jari Eskola on the basis of what Jaakko had already completed and the ideas he had expressed. 

The symphony (2022) is partly autobiographical, and the listener may detect his moments of despair and the unpredictability of life in the face of disease. There are also flashbacks to the song he wrote for his future wife Maija, the soundscape of his MRI scans and the radioactive rays zapping the destructive cancer cells.  

The rhythms of the coda follow the exact locations of the beacons, buoys and other navigation lights in the Gulf of Finland.  

“Jaakko was highly familiar with these. By following them, you can safely sail through the islands and out to the open sea”, says Pekka.