Seoul International Music Festival: Sinfonia Lahti “Sibelius”
8PM TUE. 25th October, Concert hall, Seoul Arts Center

J. Sibelius Finlandia, Op. 26
J. Sibelius Violin Concerto, Op. 47 (Violin Elina Vahala)
J. Sibelius Lemminkainen Suite, Op. 22

Conductor dima Slobodeniouk, Violin Elina Vahala, Sinfonia Lahti

Seoul International Music Festival, the second stage, filled with the mood of Finland!
The wonderful gift of Finland, Lahti Symphony Orchestra.
Nominated for Grammy Award for Best Classical Compendium, A Young Conductor, Dima Slobodeniouk
Music that shines, ‘Young Master Soloist”, Violinist Elina Vahala
Lahti Symphony Orchestra, a residing association of The Sibelius Hall, invites the audience to the banquet of breath-taking sounds of Northern Europe that is blue, clear, cool and that resonates deeply. Welcome to the vivid experience of the maestro Sibelius, born from the land of lakes and forests. The magnificent and delicate program of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, the treasure of Finland.
Finlandia, as the title suggests, is Finland itself. It’s the most famous work of Sibelius, and describes the episodes from Finland history in a dramatic way. It proceeds with sharp melodies as if to start a battle, but connects to a calm and quiet Finlandia hymn. How Dima Slobodeniouk and Lahti Symphony Orchestra will collaborate and interpret the music of Finland is the question that triggers anticipation.
Sibelius’ Violin Symphony is considered one of the best violin symphonies of all time. Elina Vahala was discovered by Osmo Vanska at a young age, and steadily performed with Lahti Symphony Orchestra on numerous stages. As a rising star with a solid ground in the world of Classical Music, Elina Vahala’s performance with her spark of emotions and imagination is one reason to look forward to this violin symphony.
Finally, Lahti Symphony Orchestra will be performing the ‘Lemminkainen’ Suite, also known as the Four Legends from the Kalevala, which was inspired by the famous Finnish epic poem, “Kalevala.” Listen to the musical stories of Finland, the adventures of the hero, Lemminkainen.” It will absorb the audience into a scene in the epic poem by combining the symphonic techniques and the mood of the stories.

Sinfonia Lahti
The Lahti Symphony Orchestra has been described as a ‘small-town wonder’. Its collaboration with the Swedish record company BIS was the first clear signal that its aspirations were no longer those of a provincial ensemble but were oriented towards the wider orchestral world, and the orchestra fulfilled many of its wildest dreams together with its principal conductor Osmo Vanska (1988? 2008). Since the autumn of 2008 until the spring of 2011 the orchestra’s artistic advisor and artistic director of the Sibelius Festival ? was Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Since the autumn of 2011 until the spring of 2016 Okko Kamu was the orchestra’s principal conductor and the artistic director of the Festival, and in the autumn of 2016 Dima Slobodeniouk began his tenure in these positions.

In the early 1990s various goals were set: to start touring internationally, to acquire a new concert hall and, by means of unconventional projects, to build a reputation for the orchestra as a ‘trailblazer with a difference’. Since 2000 the orchestra’s home has been the Sibelius Hall, known for its excellent acoustic. Numerous awards for the orchestra’s recordings (including a Grand Prix du Disque 1993, Gramophone Awards in 1991 and 1996, Cannes Classical Awards in 1997 and 2001, the MIDEM Classical Award in 2006 and the Diapason d’Or de l’Annee in 2011) have also opened the doors to an international arena. The orchestra’s first major tour to Japan took place in 1999, and that year it also made its successful debut at the Avery Fisher Hall in New York.

These successful performances gave rise to repeat invitations, and tour destinations have included the United States (January 2005) and Japan (2003, 2006 and 2015). Japanese critics chose the orchestra’s Tokyo performance of Sibelius’s Kullervo in 2003 as the year’s best classical performance in Japan. The orchestra has performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg, twice at the BBC Proms in London and at six concerts in the Musikverein in Vienna. In addition, it has given concerts in China, France, Spain, Poland and Belgium, and its performances have been warmly received by the international press.

The orchestra’s broad-minded attitude can also be inferred from the many exceptional recording projects that it has undertaken. Its first disc of Finnish hymns reached gold record status in about one month; overall, the orchestra now has seven gold records to its credit. Its soundtrack disc to the film Sibelius and its ABBA and Queen recordings together with the group Rajaton have all become platinum discs.

Alongside the music of Sibelius, the core of the orchestra’s work has been its collaboration with Kalevi Aho, composer-in-residence since 1992: among the works Aho has composed for the orchestra are five symphonies. The orchestra has also recorded a major part of Aho’s extensive orchestral output. Without exception these recordings have been favourably received by the international press, as indeed have almost all of the discs in the orchestra’s close collaboration with BIS Records, which now extends to some seventy recordings. In the autumn of 2009, internationalsales of the orchestra’s BIS recordings passed the million mark.

Artistic Directors of Lahti Symphony Orchestra
1951-1957 Martti Simila
1959-1978 Urpo Pesonen
1978-1984 Jouko Saari
1985-1988 Ulf Soderblom
1988-2008 Osmo Vanska
2008-2011 Jukka-Pekka Saraste
2011-2016 Okko Kamu
2016- Dima Slobodeniouk

Conductor Dima Slobodeniouk
In August 2015 Dima Slobodeniouk was announced as Principal Conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Sibelius Festival, a position he takes up from 2016/17 season. Lauded for his deeply informed and intelligent artistic leadership Slobodeniouk is also Music Director of the Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia since September 2013, a position he will combine with his new posts in Lahti. Combining his native Russian roots with his years of musical study in Finland Slobodeniouk draws on the powerful musical strengths of these countries.

Dima Slobodeniouk also maintains a strong presence on concert podiums internationally. The 2015/16 season will see him guest conduct Orchestre National de Lyon, Gothenburg Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Hall, Lucerne Symphony, Iceland Symphony and as a regular guest he returns to Helsinki Philharmonic and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He will work with Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Baiba Skride, Viktoria Mullova, Tine Thing Helseth, Anssi Karttunen, Ewa Podle?, Barbara Hannigan and Helena Juntunen.

With his passions for a broad scope of repertoire he conducts Beethoven, Verdi, Mahler, Sibelius, Stravinsky to the modern, including works of Jonathan Harvey, the Catalan composer Benet Casablancas, and Magnus Lindberg which will feature the Spanish premiere of his cello concerto. He explores two song cycles of Unsuk Chin (‘Les Silences des Sirenes’ and ‘SnagS and Snarls’). In spring 2016 the Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia tours with Yefim Bronfman to Madrid and with Javier Perianes to Abu Dhabi.

Passionate about working with young musicians of the future Slobodeniouk worked with student musicians of the 2015 Verbier Festival, and he begins a conducting initiative with Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia for a ten day period providing an opportunity for students to work on the podium with a professional orchestra.

In 2015 saw the release of a CD of works of Lotta Wennakoski with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra for the Ondine label. Maintaining an active collaboration with BIS Records the Finnish composer Sebastian Fagerlund is presented on the BIS label conducted by Slobodeniouk with Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

Slobodeniouk, Moscow-born, studied violin at the Central Music School under Zinaida Gilels and J. Chugajev continuing at the Conservatory’s Music Institute, Moscow in 1989 and at the Middle Finland’s Conservatory and the Sibelius Academy under Olga Parhomenko. In 1994, participated in the conductors class of Atso Almila. He continued his Sibelius Academy studies under the guidance of Leif Segerstam, Jorma Panula and Atso Almila. He has also studied under Ilya Musin and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Violin Elina Vahala
“In Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, the playing of Elina Vahala? -- was a continuous stream of virtuosity, hushed at certain times, heroically brave at others. The cadenza was stunning in its control of diverse elements and the danse macabre of the finale was a tour de force of marrying technique with a joy of life.”
-Classical Source, 2012

Elina Vahala has appeared with orchestras including Helsinki Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Lahti, Turku Philharmonic as well as Oregon Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra and Nashville Symphony Orchestra. She has worked with conductors Leonard Slatkin, Carlos Kalmar, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Okko Kamu, Jakub Hr??a, Thierry Fischer, Jeffrey Tate, Sakari Oramo and Leif Sergerstam and toured throughout the UK, Finland, Germany, China, Korea and South America; in 2008 she was chosen to perform at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony which was televised to a worldwide audience.

Season highlights for 2016/17 include her debut with RTE National Symphony Orchestra and performances with Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, NorrlandsOperan Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony Orchestra and Virginia Symphony Orchestra.
Recent highlights include highly successful debuts with Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra and Gavle Symphony Orchestra, performances with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic and Colorado Symphony orchestras, as well as a tour of the US with the Festival Pablo Casals Prades Collective.
With a repertoire that ranges from baroque to contemporary, Elina Vahala has given world premieres of Aulis Sallinen＇s Chamber Concerto and Curtis-Smith＇s Double Concerto, both written for her and pianist-conductor Ralf Gotho?ni. In addition, Vahala gave the first Nordic performance of John Corigliano’s Violin Concerto ‘The Red Violin’ and commissioned a new violin concerto from composer Jaakko Kuusisto. Both the Corgiliano and Kuusisto concertos were recorded for BIS in 2013.
Educational activities play an important role in her commitment to music; In 2009 Elina Vahala launched the Violin Academy; funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the academy is a master class based educational project for selected, highly talented young Finnish violinists. She is a professor at the University of Music in Karlsruhe, Germany.

Vahala＇s instrument is made by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini in 1780.