Estimated duration

2 h 15 min., incl. intermission

Organizer

Helsingin juhlaviikot

The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Susanna Mälkki present a United States-themed concert at Helsinki Festival.

The concert includes the Finnish-language premiere of John Adams’s work The Wound-Dresser (1988) for chamber orchestra and baritone. Based on a poem by Walt Whitman, the piece portrays the poet’s experiences as a volunteer tending to the wounded during the American Civil War. Whitman cared for injured soldiers, including his own brother, recording the horrors of war in a poem. Adams’s elegiac interpretation of the text now receives its Finnish-language version, Lääkintämies. The soloist is Ville Rusanen, a baritone enjoying a prominent international opera career.

The concert opens with Unstuck (2008), by American contemporary composer Andrew Norman, inspired also by a literary source. Struggling with a creative block, Norman found renewed inspiration in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five, particularly in the phrase “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.” The Radio Symphony Orchestra will perform the piece for the first time in Finland.

The English composer Thomas Adès offers his vision of America in America: A Prophecy (1999), a work commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for orchestra and mezzo-soprano to celebrate the turn of the millennium. Adès’s piece presents an almost apocalyptic vision of America at the dawn of the new millennium. The soloist at the concert in the Helsinki Music Centre is American opera singer Cecelia Hall. Hall’s sensitive expression is paired with phenomenal technical mastery, making her one of the most sought-after mezzo-sopranos of our time.

The concert concludes with Symphony No. 2 (1897–1902) by Charles Ives. Ives is one of the foremost composers of American modernism, and his rarely performed symphony was also premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1951, despite being completed at the turn of the century. The symphony, drawing on American folk traditions, was warmly received by both audiences and conductor Leonard Bernstein, and Ives, who had remained outside official music circles, experienced a resurgence of recognition in the early 1950s during his final years.

Contrary to previous information, Fleur Barron will not be performing in the concert.

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Susanna Mälkki, conductor
Cecelia Hall, mezzo-soprano
Ville Rusanen, baritone

Program:
Andrew Norman: Unstuck (Finnish premiere)
Thomas Adès: America: A Prophecy
John Adams: The Wound-Dresser (Finnish-language premiere)

Charles Ives: Symphony No. 2