Osmo Vänskä conducts the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in concerts on 9, 10 and 11 February, marking his return to the orchestra since his debut in 2016. He presents a varied and exciting programme featuring in the first half Kabalevsky’s The Comedians and Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto, a piece not heard in Pittsburgh for over 20 years, with Vilde Frang as soloist. The program continues in the second half with Rautavaara’s A Requiem in our Time, a Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra premiere, and concludes with Beethoven’s Symphony No.5, a work Vänskä recorded with the Minnesota Orchestra.

These concerts follow a busy start of 2018, with a two-week Tchaikovsky Marathon starting with the New Year’s Eve Concert, and a successful Midwest tour, ending with a concert in Chicago, at the home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The tour was much lauded and the closing concert received great praise across several newspapers, with the Chicago Tribune stating: ​“Minnesota Orchestra makes crisp thrilling comeback at Symphony Center” and ​“Vänskä has few living equals in this repertory, and his reading of [Sibelius’] ​“En Saga” was as crisp and thrilling as any today. It observed changes of dynamics with a meticulousness rarely heard at Orchestra Hall.” 

Vänskä will follow the concerts in Pittsburgh, with return visits to Iceland Symphony Orchestra, including a chamber music concert, and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, with the second concert in Finland being streamed live.