“Siri Brander's Elegie for string orchestra was newsworthy and – it has to be said at once – good news indeed.” The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra’s popular concert in April 1894 featured a set of symphonic masterpieces, yet the newspaper Uusi Suometar highlighted the opening number of the concert by a 28-year-old local composer and animal welfare activist whose sad melodies enchanted the audience.
Claire Chase, “the most important flutist of our time” (The New York Times) and “the young star of the modern flute” (The New Yorker), has performed more than a thousand premieres on six continents in the last ten years. For Kaija Saariaho, the flute is an instrument that is close to her heart for the way in which a breath can always be heard in its voice. In Aile du Songe, the flute is a bird whose flight is a symbol of the mysteries of life.