Kuopio Symphony Orchestra
Mikkeli Symphony Orchestra
Atso Almila, conductor
Ville Rusanen, baritone

Franz Berwald: Overture from the opera The Queen of Golconda
Sofia Kiviniemi (18, Helsinki): from -21 to +35
Gabriel Kivivuori Sereno (18, Joensuu): La pájara
Atso Almila (music and libretto): Sodan soutumies – symphonic poem for baritone and orchestra

Conductor-composer Atso Almila’s symphonic poem Sodan soutumies (‘Oarsman of the War’) was originally commissioned for the 230th anniversary of the Battle of Svensksund. Almila wanted to describe the war from the point of view of a single oarsman of the war, Antti. Antti sees the Russian ship St. Nikolai sink with 400 men; he himself drowns as well, now singing as a ghost from the past a story about the madness of war and about the over ten thousand dead at the bottom of the sea. For these performances, Almila wanted, among other thigs, to expand the composition of the orchestra from a sinfonietta to the dimensions of the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra.

As his own years advance, Almila, who turned 70 in June, takes pleasure in highlighting works by Berwald, the most important composer of symphonies in the Nordic countries prior to the days of Sibelius. Atso also has a long career in pedagogy, for which reason he wanted to choose to the programme two winning works from the finals of the Uuno Klami competition for young composers.

Produced by the St. Michel Strings
Tickets: 30 € / 27 € / 12 €

More information: Concert & Congress Centre Mikaeli and St. Michel Strings