THURSDAY 20.2.2025 AT 18.30

RUMON GAMBA, conductor
LILLI MAIJALA, viola

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Sampo Kasurinen: Concerto for Viola and Orchestra (co-commission by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Oulu Sinfonia)
Antonín Dvořák: Symphony No. 9, ‘From the New World’

Antonín Dvořák’s tenure as director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York opened up the Czech composer’s mind to new sensations. Fascinated by Afro-American gospel, indigenous melodies and majestic landscapes, the composer blended these ingredients into one of the most beloved orchestral works of all time, his Symphony No. 9, ‘From the New World’.

Sampo Kasurinen’s concerto is specially written for Lilli Maijala, the leading Finnish viola player. The work blurs the boundaries of the reality behind the music in the style of the visual artist Ragnar Kjartanson. Kasurinen’s music is not music as such, but rather images of music – the contradictions between the often beautiful end result that the audience hears and the world behind the curtain.

By contrast, the Fantasia on the Theme of Thomas Tallis by the English national romantic Ralph Vaughan Williams glows with pure, undisguised beauty.