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BEETHOVEN’S NINTH SYMPHONY

Manfred Honeck leads the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Choir and the Eric Ericsson Chamber Choir and four soloists in a concert featuring masterpieces in the spirit of freedom and peace. It includes Arnold Schönberg’s ethereal Friede auf Erden and Beethoven’s last symphony, Symphony No. 9, best known for the euphoric choral finale based on the “Ode to Joy” theme.

Friday’s concert on December 16 will be broadcast live on Sveriges Radio P2 and on Berwaldhallen Play at 7pm.


SWEDISH RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

dot SWEDISH RADIO CHOIR

dot 2022/2023

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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.

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32 professional choristers make up the Swedish Radio Choir: a unique, dynamic instrument hailed by music-lovers and critics all over the world. The Swedish Radio Choir performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, as well as on tours all over the country and the world. Also, they are heard regularly by millions of listeners on Swedish Radio P2, Berwaldhallen Play and globally through the EBU.

The award-winning Latvian conductor Kaspars Putniņš was appointed Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir in 2020. Since January 2019, its choirmaster is French orchestral and choral conductor Marc Korovitch, with responsibility for the choir’s vocal development.

The Swedish Radio Choir was founded in 1925, the same year as Sweden’s inaugural radio broadcasts, and gave its first concert in May that year. Multiple acclaimed and award-winning albums can be found in the choir’s record catalogue. Late 2023 saw the release of Kaspars Putniņš first album with the choir: Robert Schumann’s Missa sacra, recorded with organist Johan Hammarström.

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The Eric Ericson Chamber Choir was founded in 1945 by the then 27-year-old Eric Ericson and has since been a prominent hub of the Swedish as well as the international music scene. The ensemble’s interest in continually finding new music and new fields of work has given them a very extensive repertoire: from early music to the very latest. For generations of Swedish and international composers, the choir has represented an ideal with its characteristic Nordic sound and skilful virtuosity. The Eric Ericson Chamber Choir is part of the international elite of professional ensembles. Fredrik Malmberg has been their choirmaster since 2013.

Manfred Honeck has firmly established himself as one of the world’s leading conductors, whose distinctive and revelatory interpretations receive great international acclaim. He is now entering his 15th season as Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where his contract was extended last year to run through the 2027-2028 season. Guest appearances regularly include Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, as well as the major venues of Europe and festivals such as the BBC Proms, Salzburg Festival, Musikfest Berlin, Lucerne Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, and Grafenegg Festival.

Born in Austria, Manfred Honeck completed his musical training at the University of Music in Vienna and was a member of the viola section in the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera for many years. He began his conducting career as assistant to Claudio Abbado and as director of the Vienna Jeunesse Orchestra. Subsequently, he was engaged by the Zurich Opera House, where he was awarded the European Conducting Prize in 1993. He has since served as one of three principal conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig, as Music Director of the Norwegian National Opera, Principal Guest Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm.

Manfred Honeck also has a strong profile as an opera conductor. In his four seasons as General Music Director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart, he conducted premieres of operas by Berlioz, Mozart, Poulenc, Strauss, Verdi, and Wagner. Beyond the podium, Manfred Honeck has designed a series of symphonic suites, including Janáček’s Jenůfa, Strauss’s Elektra and Dvořák’s Rusalka, all of which he recorded with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and regularly performs around the globe.

As a guest conductor, Manfred Honeck has worked with the leading international orchestras around the globe, including Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapelle Dresden, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, New York Philharmonic, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic.

Malin Broman is the first concertmaster of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2008. She served as artistic director of Musica Vitae in 2015–2020, premiering over 20 works and touring and recording extensively. In 2019, she succeeded Sakari Oramo as artistic director of the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra.

As a guest leader, she has been invited to perform with ensembles such as the London Symphony Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra. As combined soloist and leader she has performed with the Tapiola Sinfonietta, Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Trondheim Soloists and ACO Collective. Soloist highlights include performances with the Gothenburg Symphony, Copenhagen Phil, BBC Scottish Symphony, Academy of St Martin-in-the Fields, and the Swedish Radio Orchestra, working with such conductors as Neeme Järvi, Andrew Manze and Daniel Harding.

In recent years, she has premiered concertos by Daniel Börtz, Britta Byström, Andrea Tarrodi and Daniel Nelson. She has recorded over 30 albums, including concertos by Carl Nielsen and Britta Byström. Recent releases include an album with music by Laura Netzel, and Stockholm Diary with the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. Her recording of Mendelssohn’s double concerto together with pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips and Musica Vitae was Grammy nominated in 2019.

She received much acclaim for her recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s string octet in the spring of 2020, where she played all eight parts herself. She has since made two similar recordings: Britta Byström’s octet A Room of One’s Own, and Johan Halvorsens Passacaglia recorded with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra’s solo contrabassist Rick Stotijn.

In 2001, she founded the Change Music Festival in Kungsbacka. She is also co-founder of Kungsbacka Piano Trio, with which she had played more than 700 concerts all ove the world, and of Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble which is made up of some of Europe’s most brilliant chamber musicians.

In 2008, Malin was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. The Kungsbacka Piano Trio has received the prestigious Interpret Prize of the Royal Academy of Music. In 2019, she was awarded H.M. The King’s Medal. She is currently Professor of Viola at Edsberg Institute of Music in Stockholm. She plays a 1709 Stradivarius violin and a 1861 Bajoni viola, both generously loaned by the Järnåker Foundation.

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Christina Landshamer is a much sought-after concert and opera singer. She has performed with conductors such as Kent Nagano, Roger Norrington and Ricardo Chailly, as well as with some of Europe’s most renowned orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and the Orchestre de Paris, as well as North American ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal. Recently she performed in Britten’s Les Illuminations and Mozart’s Requiem as well as on tour with the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées and Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

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Katija Dragojevic is a Swedish mezzo-soprano, who works on international stages such as La Scala, Covent Garden and Salzburger Festspiele.

She is educated at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and debuted in 2000 as Krista in Janacek’s The Makropulos Affair at La Monnaie in Brussels. Other roles she has done include the title roles in Xerxes and Carmen and Cherubin in The Marriage of Figaro, and she has also appeared as Zerlina in Kasper Holten’s acclaimed film adaptation of Don Juan, based on Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

As a concert singer, Dragojevic has appeared with symphony orchestras such as the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Orchester de Paris, the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, the NDR Sinfonieorchester in Hamburg and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Munich. She has performed, among others, Bach’s Matthew Passion, Mozart’s Requiem, Berlioz’s Les nuits d´été, Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with conductors such as Ivor Bolton, Daniel Harding, Andris Nelsons, Leif Segerstam, Manfred Honeck and Robin Ticciati.

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Tenor Maximilian Schmitt studied singing with Anke Eggers at the Berlin University of the Arts and was artistically coached by Roland Hermann.

Schmitt gained his first stage experience as a member of the Opera Studio at Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich before joining the ensemble of the Mannheim National Theater for four years in 2008. In 2012, he made his debut at the Amsterdam Opera as Tamino under Marc Albrecht. In 2016 Maximilian Schmitt he debuted as Idomeneo in another major Mozart role, this time at the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg. Immediately afterwards, he appeared for the first time at the Vienna State Opera as Don Ottavio. In 2017, he made a guest appearance at La Scala in Milan, where he debuted as Pedrillo in Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio under Zubin Mehta. In 2019, he sang his first Max in Weber’s Freischütz at the Aalto Theater in Essen, followed in 2022 by his debut as Erik in the Flying Dutchman at the Graz Opera.

Maximilian Schmitt is a regular guest on the major international concert stages. His broad repertoire ranges from Monteverdi and Mozart to Mendelssohn, Elgar, Mahler, Zender and Britten. Invited by conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Daniel Harding, Manfred Honeck, René Jacobs and Robin Ticciati, he has already worked, with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the symphony orchestras of the Bavarian and Central German Radio, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. Schmitt is also a regular guest of the Orchestre de Paris or the Orchestre National de France.

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Polish bass Krzysztof Bączyk, born in 1990, received his musical training first as a member of the Poznań Boys Choir. He went on to study at the Academy of Music from where he graduated in 2014. He also attended master-classes held by artists such as Neil Shicoff, Anita Garanča, Andrzej Dobber, Anne Murray and David Pountney. Moreover, he attended Akademia Operowa Young Artists Program at the Polish National Opera in Warsaw and he worked with Izabela Kłosińska and
Eytan Pessen.

Bączyk has a broad repertoar and has since 2010 sung bass roles in operas such as Lady Macbet form Mtsensk, Aida, Eugene Onegin, Parsifal, Don Giovanni, La clemenza di Tito. He has appeared on international stages including the opera festivals in Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne and Salzbourg as well as on the Opera Bastille in Paris, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.

Programme

Approximate timings

I. Allegro ma non troppo; un poco maestoso
II. Molto vivace
III. Adagio molto e cantabile
IV. Presto – Allegro assai – Allegro assai vivace

Approximate concert length: 1 h 20 min (no intermission)