Helsingin kaupunginorkesteri Espanjan-kiertue

Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra to tour Spain

The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra will tour Spain this November together with chief conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste and pianist Nelson Goerner. The orchestra will be bringing to Spain the music of Sibelius and Rachmaninoff.

The orchestra will perform five concerts in five different halls around the country. The tour kicks off on Sunday 10 November at the Palau de la Música in Valencia. Commissioned in 1987, this concert hall has just been given a major renovation. The concert opens with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with Argentinian pianist Nelson Goerner as soloist, and closes with Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5. The same programme is also scheduled for 13 November in Madrid, where the orchestra will perform at the Auditorio Nacional de Música concert hall.

The programme will also include the “Rach 3” In Barcelona on 11 November and Zaragoza on 12 November, but instead of Sibelius’s fifth symphony, the concerts will close with his second symphony. The tour ends on Friday 15 November at Alicante’s ADDA, where violinist Jan Söderblom and flutist Niamh McKenna from the orchestra's own ranks will perform as soloists. The programme for the final evening will feature the music of Jean Sibelius, including Serenades No. 1 and 2 for violin and orchestra, the Nocturne from Belshazzar's Feast and Finlandia. The tour culminates with Sibelius’s fifth symphony.

This will be the ninth time already that the orchestra tours Spain, most recently in 2016. At that time, the programme featured the music of Jean Sibelius and Sergei Prokofiev.