The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra will explore classic and intriguing new Anglo-American music alongside its main repertoire in the upcoming 2018 – 19 season.

The 2018 – 19 programme features a wide range of orchestral works by American and British composers, including the likes of Samuel Barber, Edward Elgar, Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland and Morton Feldman. Featured among today’s contemporary composers will be Joan Tower, John Adams, Jennifer Higdon and Sean Shepherd, as well as Mason Bates, who was recently named Composer of the Year by Musical America. Guest conductors will include the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra’s long-time partners Sakari Oramo, Osmo Vänskä, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and John Storgårds, as well as Domingo Hindoyan and Michael Sanderling, who will be conducting the orchestra for the first time.

The autumn season gets underway with Chief Conductor Susanna Mälkki joined by pianist Kirill Gerstein and the Helsinki Music Centre Choir. The opening concert presents a Charles Ives classic, the piano concerto of Arnold Schönberg, who emigrated to the US, and a seldom performed jazz orchestra version of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The eagerly awaited joint concert of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the UMO Jazz Orchestra also takes place early in the season. The Symphonic Ellington concert features music from Duke Ellington’s classic album from the 1960s, including new Ellington arrangements.

The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra will also be joined on the stage of the Helsinki Music Centre this coming autumn by pianist Jeremy Denk, violist-composer Brett Dean, violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and Mackenzie Melemed, winner of the Maj Lind Piano Competition in 2017. In spring 2019, the international guest artists will include conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, soprano Camilla Tilling, clarinettist Martin Fröst and violinist Chloë Hanslip.

Concert audiences will also get to enjoy the talents of a new generation of Finnish artists. In the coming season, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra will be conducted by Dalia Stasevska and Klaus Mäkelä, as well as Taavi Oramo and Eva Ollikainen, who will be making their conducting debuts in front of the orchestra. Soloists include cellist Jonathan Roozeman and pianist Joonas Ahonen.

The spring programme includes the debut performance of a new composition by German composer Enno Poppe that was commissioned by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The opening concert of Musica nova Helsinki will also present new music and several Finnish premieres. The festival’s soloists will be the pianist sisters Katia and Marielle Labèque, who will interpret a concerto composed for them by Bryce Dessner. The concert year ends with a performance of a recently debuted violin concerto by Ondřej Adámek performed by soloist Isabelle Faust. 

In April the orchestra will tour Central Europe together with Chief Conductor Susanna Mälkki and violinist Pekka Kuusisto; among the concert halls will be Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Vienna’s Konzerthaus. While the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra is on tour, the programme at the Helsinki Music Centre will feature the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, which will perform Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with conductor Aapo Häkkinen and guest soloists. 

The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra’s popular HKO Screen online broadcasts will continue in the coming season. The concerts can be watched on the orchestra’s website. The HKO Screen series will comprise no less than 22 concerts.