A Night of Jean Sibelius to take place in HCM city

Conductor Kalle Kuusava will direct the Night of Jean Sibelius

Finland, a land of thousands of lakes, is famous worldwide for not only a rich folk music tradition, but also the export of beautiful modern music worldwide.

Finland’s most precious gift to the world in general and musical legacyin particular, Jean Sibelius, will be presented with his two works: a technically challenging Concerto for Violin in D minor, Op. 47, particularly the 3rd movement Allegro ma non tanto to be handled by Vu Viet Chuong.

Scottish musicologist Donald Tovey called the concerto “polonaise for polar bears”, partially perhaps due to the technical demands throughout the work’s wide range of expression. Some imagine enjoying the Concerto is like watching icy nature, and Jean himself made comparison its third movement with dance macabre.

Nowadays, Concerto for Violin in D minor is the most performed and recorded composition in the 20th century, and in the 21st century there are over 50 recordings of the piece in existence.

The second work, 2nd Symphony in D major, Op. 43, will be presented by Finnish conductor Kalle Kuusava and HBSO’s symphony orchestra. Written in the final years of Russian reign in Finland, the work is highly heroic and strangely optimistic and elevates Jean Sibelius to the status of national hero, while nicknamed the Independence Symphony. Karl Flodin in 1903 dubbed the work as “an absolute masterpiece, one of the few symphonic creations of our time that point in the same direction as the symphonies of Beethoven”.

Conductor Kalle Kuusava will direct the program. He is the winner of the European Conductors Competition in Oslo in 2013 and laureate of Evgeny Svetlanov Competition in Paris in 2014, Kalle Kuusava is on demand as an operatic and symphonic conductor./.