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A FANFARE FOR BERWALDHALLEN - THE ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

Ingvar Lidholm’s fanfare opens this ‘extra everything’ concert that will see wonderful music, incomparable soloists, and many secret guests and surprises before the night is through. For 40 years, Berwaldhallen has played host to fantastic musical experiences. We extend a warm welcome to you to come and celebrate this jubilee of Swedish Radio’s concert hall, all of Sweden’s concert hall, with us!

Ingvar Lidholm’s majestic Fanfar (Fanfare) has sounded at least three times, and each time, it has been played by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. The first time was in June 1956, when the ISCM World Music Days festival was held in Stockholm. The fanfare was written especially for the festival, by the way. 23 years later, it was played again, when Berwaldhallen opened its doors on the 30th of November 1979. A further 20 years thereafter, it marked the 20th anniversary of Swedish Radio’s concert hall, and now, 40 years to the day since Berwaldhallen was opened, it’s time again. Lidholm’s fanfare, whose history is closely intertwined with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Berwaldhallen, becomes the symbolic crown atop a fantastic concert programme.

The word ‘fantastic’ is often bandied about a bit carelessly, but here, it really is appropriate. Swedish star composer Tobias Broström’s Nigredo: Dark Night of the Soul is a virtuoso mirage, composed for two of the world’s foremost trumpet soloists, as well as an introspective, philosophical piece rooted deep down in the human psyche. Håkan Hardenberger and Jeroen Berwaerts are two of today’s best trumpet players. Berwaldhallen has proudly welcomed the world’s best conductors, musicians and guest ensembles for 40 years, and introduced them not just to the concert audience, but to all of Sweden through broadcasts via Swedish Radio’s P2 and online.

The king of the waltz, Johann Strauss the younger, who, had there been a Billboard list in the 1800s would have been the Max Martin of his time, contributes with the handsome overture of one of his most popular operettas: Die Fledermaus. It’s festive, celebratory, catchy music. It’s not a coincidence that the word jubilee comes from an old term meaning to ‘shout for joy,’ which is exactly what Strauss’ overture invites you to do – rise from your seat and shout for joy.

Don Juan, the symphonic poem that became Richard Strauss’ big international breakthrough, rounds off this magnificent jubilee programme. Here, Strauss united inspiration from his own love-life, new musical impressions, and dramatic poem Don Juan’s Ende by Nikolaus Lenau. Many view Don Juan as the first piece where the mature Strauss steps forward, and even one of his best symphonic poems. It’s extroverted, cocky and virtuosic music interpreted with the usual sensitivity and expressivity by Swedish Radio’s Symphony Orchestra’s music director Daniel Harding.

Text: David Saulesco


SWEDISH RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA dot 2019/2020
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Participants

 

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The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is a multiple-award-winning ensemble renowned for its high artistic standard and stylistic breadth, as well as collaborations with the world’s finest composers, conductors, and soloists. It regularly tours all over Europe and the world and has an extensive and acclaimed recording catalogue.

Daniel Harding has been Music Director of the SRSO since 2007, and since 2019 also its Artistic Director. His tenure will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. Two of the orchestra’s former chief conductors, Herbert Blomstedt and Esa-Pekka Salonen, have since been named Conductors Laureate, and continue to perform regularly with the orchestra.

The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, and is a cornerstone of Swedish public service broadcasting. Its concerts are heard weekly on the Swedish classical radio P2 and regularly on national public television SVT. Several concerts are also streamed on-demand on Berwaldhallen Play and broadcast globally through the EBU.

Daniel Harding is Music and Artistic Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, with whom in 2022 he celebrated his 15-year anniversary. In the 2014/2015 season, he devised and curated the celebrated Interplay Festival, featuring concerts and related inspirational talks with renowned artists and academics. As Artistic Director, he continues this type of influential programming. Harding is also Conductor Laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom he has worked for over 20 years, and Music Director of Youth Music Culture, The Greater Bay Area in China. The 2024/2025 season will be his first as Music Director at the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

Harding is a regular visitor to the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Staatskapelle Dresden and the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. In the US, he has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony. A renowned opera conductor, he has led acclaimed productions at the Teatro alla Scala Milan, Wiener Staatsoper, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and at the Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg Festivals. He was Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, the Anima Mundi festival of Pisa, and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Daniel Harding tours regularly with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing at prestigious venues all over Europe and the world, and has recorded several acclaimed and award-winning albums with the orchestra. His tenure as Music and Artistic Director will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. “It is increasingly rare that the relationship between a conductor and an orchestra not only lasts for more than a decade, but keeps growing,” he says about working with the orchestra.

In 2002, Harding was awarded the title Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government, and in 2017 nominated to the position Officier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2012, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 2021, he was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Daniel Harding grew up in Oxford, England, and played trumpet before taking up conducting in his late teens. He is also, since 2016, a qualified airline pilot.

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Håkan Hardenberger is one of the world’s leading soloists, consistently recognized for his phenomenal performances and tireless innovation. Alongside his performances of the classical repertory, he is also renowned as a pioneer of significant and virtuosic new trumpet works.

Hardenberger performs with the world’s foremost orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Wiener Philharmoniker, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker and London Symphony Orchestra. Conductors he regularly collaborates with include Martyn Brabbins, Péter Eötvös, Alan Gilbert, Daniel Harding, Ingo Metzmacher, Andris Nelsons, Sakari Oramo, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and John Storgårds.
The works written for and championed by Hardenberger stand as key highlights in the repertory and include those by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Brett Dean, Hans Werner Henze, Steven Mackey, Olga Neuwirth, Arvo Pärt, Toru Takemitsu, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Rolf Wallin and HK Gruber’s concerto Aerial, which has received its 70th performance with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2015.

In summer 2017, Hardenberger returns to the Tanglewood Music Festival, this time for an educational focus featuring collaborations with Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians and Tanglewood Music Centre Fellows. He is the celebrity Resident Artist of the new Klosters Summer Music Festival in Switzerland. In 2017/2018 he continues his residency with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, which showcases him as soloist and a conductor. In January 2018 he leads HK Gruber’s 75th birthday festivities at the Konzerthaus Vienna, performing his first trumpet concerto Aerial. He returns to Vienna for a performance at the Musikverein celebrating B.A.Zimmermann’s centenary. He also works with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio and Danish National Symphony Orchestra as well as Helsinki and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestras.

Conducting is an integral part of Hardenberger’s music making. He conducts orchestras such as BBC Philharmonic, Saint Paul and Swedish Chamber Orchestras, Dresden Philharmonic, RTÉ National Symphony Dublin, Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi and Malmö Symphony Orchestra. Duo partnerships include pianist Roland Pöntinen and percussionist Colin Currie, with whom he performs a new duo work by Brett Dean this season in Malmö, Aldeburgh, Wimbledon and Bergen. He is Artistic Director of the Malmö Chamber Music Festival.

His extensive discography on the Philips, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon and BIS labels includes his latest recording with Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/ John Storgårds of Brett Dean’s and Luca Francesconi’s trumpet concertos. His catalogue features the Academy of St Martin in the Fields with arrangements of popular melodies, a Gruber and Schwertsik CD with Swedish Chamber Orchestra (BIS) and a Wallin recording with Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra (Ondine).
Hardenberger was born in Malmö, Sweden. He began studying the trumpet at the age of eight with Bo Nilsson in Malmö and continued his studies at the Paris Conservatoire, with Pierre Thibaud, and in Los Angeles with Thomas Stevens. He is a professor at the Malmö Conservatoire.

Presenter Swedish Radio P2.

Director of Swedish Radio Choir & Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Approximate concert length: 2 hours and 15 minutes (with intermission)

Actual concert time for music and intermissionn 1 hour and 12 min. Then there will be additional time for anniversary-specific activities such as presentation and surprises.