Hannu Lintu has planned the next three Sibelius Festivals as a single entity. At all the orchestral concerts at the 2025–2027 Sibelius Festivals he will conduct the Lahti Symphony Orchestra.

The 2026 festival will include works by Sibelius and by his contemporaries Richard Strauss, Ferruccio Busoni and Sergei Rachmaninov. Guest soloists include violinist Inmo Yang and pianist Kirill Gerstein.

EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT
10 %  discount applies to tickets by 29 September 2025.

REMEMBER ALSO SIBELIUS FESTIVAL PASS
The festival pass includes orchestral concerts, cloakroom charge, concert programme and Sibelius Festival bag.

SIBELIUS FESTIVAL 2026

ENCOUNTERS
SIBELIUS FESTIVAL 2026
27.-29.8.2026 Sibelius Hall, Lahti

Thursday 27.8.2026
SINFONIA LAHTI
HANNU LINTU, conductor
INMO YANG, violin

Richard Strauss: Don Juan (1888)
Jean Sibelius: Violin Concerto (1905)
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 (1902)

‘I can do more, but he is greater’, Richard Strauss said about Sibelius. Strauss conducted the final version of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto at its premiere in Berlin in 1905. When Sibelius travelled to Italy in 1901, his vision was to compose music for the story of Don Juan. The result, however, was a symphony whose tensions and outbursts may have originated from that plan.

Friday 28.8.2026
SINFONIA LAHTI
HANNU LINTU, conductor
KIRILL GERSTEIN, piano
YL MALE VOICE CHOIR

Jean Sibelius: Valse Triste (1904)
Ferruccio Busoni: Piano Concerto (1903)
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 3 (1907)
Jean Sibelius: Finlandia (1900)

The golden age of male choral singing dates back to the 19th century in German-speaking countries. It made its way from patriotic occasions and taverns onto concert platforms throughout Europe. Sibelius and his friend Ferruccio Busoni, who taught piano at the Helsinki Music Institute, were both fascinated by the sonority and expressive power of the male-voice choir. Busoni would hardly have included a male choir in his vast Piano Concerto had he not been influenced by Franz Liszt and Sibelius.

Saturday 29.8.2026
SINFONIA LAHTI
HANNU LINTU, conductor
OLGA HEIKKILÄ, soprano
MIHAILS ČULPAJEVS, tenor
GABRIEL KIVIVUORI-SERENO, baritone
DOMINANTE

Jean Sibelius: Bardi (1913)
Sergei Rachmaninov: The Bells (1913)
Jean Sibelius: Night Ride and Sunrise (1908)
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 4 (1911)

In 1908, Sibelius’s serious health problems were at their most acute, and a new period in his output began, in which he explored his inner voices. National romanticism was left behind and a cosmopolitan symphonist emerged. The Fourth Symphony contains music originally intended for The Raven, an orchestral song that was never completed based on a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. A text by the same poet is set in Sergei Rachmaninov’s expressionist choral fantasy The Bells.

SIBELIUS FESTIVAL 2026
CHAMBER MUSIC CONCERTS
Fri 28.8.2026 3.30 pm
INMO YANG, piano

The program will be announced later.

Sat 29.8.2026 2.30 pm
ILOA-kvartetti

The program will be announced later.