Welcome to a May open-air screening
On Friday 22 May, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra invites the entire city to gather in front of the Musiikkitalo to enjoy a live screening from the Concert Hall. At the open-air screening, the orchestra’s concert will be visible and audible on the media wall outside the Music Centre. The concert can be enjoyed from benches provided on site or from your own picnic blanket on the nearby lawns of Kansalaistori Square.
A soft landing into the world of symphony concerts
The open-air screening is free of charge, and the terrace café at the Musiikkitalo will be open throughout the evening. The event offers an excellent opportunity to discover whether a symphony concert might appeal to you or to the younger members of your family. You are also welcome to enjoy your own refreshments on the green deck on the Mannerheimintie side of the Music Centre.
Before the concert, at 6:15pm, pianists from the West Helsinki Music Institute will perform in the Musiikkitalo Main Foyer. Admission to this Little Overture concert is free.
May warmth in the air and in the music
The concert begins at 7pm in the Musiikkitalo Concert Hall, with the live stream starting simultaneously on the media wall outside. In the first half of the concert, Fazil Say’s Mother Earth will be heard for the first time in Finland. Fazil Say himself performs as the soloist of his piano concerto Mother Earth, in which countries, forests, seas and rivers each get their own part. The work, which premieres at the Osaka World Expo in spring 2025, invites us to pay attention to climate change and the preservation of life.
After the intermission, Chief Conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste will lead the orchestra in Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 4. Brahms was known for speaking of his completed works in a characteristically dry tone. He composed the Fourth Symphony while spending summers in the Austrian village of Mürzzuschlag, and feared that the work had absorbed something of the local climate: “The cherries don't ripen in these parts; you wouldn't eat them!” Ignore the composer’s own comments. The Fourth Symphony is his symphonic masterpiece, filled with the warmth of May.
Mother Earth concert on the Musiikkitalo media wall
(Kansalaistori, Alvar Aallon kuja 1, 00100 Helsinki)
Friday 22 May, from 7pm.
Explore the concert programme here.