ITALIAN REFLECTIONS

This concert conducted by Olari Elts focuses on various reflections of a country rich in colour and variety: Italy. Andrea Portera, winner of the 2019 International Uuno Klami Composition Competition – one of the world’s biggest composition competitions in terms of the number of participants – makes an eagerly-awaited return to our region. An Italian composer, he has won great acclaim for his magnificent, intense timbres, and the new work is part of his prize. The moving folk songs of another Italian, Luciano Berio, combine old and new in a way that is both fresh and original. The sparkling mezzo-soprano soloist is Finnish opera singer Virpi Räisänen. And Mendelssohn abundantly captures the glorious, disarming Italian light in his Symphony no. 4

Conductor:
Olari Elts

Soloist:
Virpi Räisänen, mezzo-soprano

Programme:
Andrea Portera: Arachnomancy, fp
Luciano Berio: Folk Songs
Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony no. 4 in A major, “Italian”