Principal residents of the Helsinki Music Centre launch an Orchestra Academy

The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Sibelius Academy launched a partnership that is unique the world over: an Orchestra Academy giving music students a chance to work with professionals and under their guidance as part of a symphony orchestra. Each year, the HPO and the FRSO select, by audition, a group of orchestral instrument students as apprentices. In addition to gaining an insight into actual working life, the students receive valuable audition training. Conducting and composition students are also granted the use of the HPO and the FRSO on alternate years. The aim of the Orchestra Academy is to enhance the training of orchestral players, conductors and composers over the long term and thereby to ensure that it better corresponds to the orchestras’ needs. It is also designed to make this training more work-oriented.