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GERMAN MASTERPIECES WITH THE SWEDISH RADIO CHOIR

Lithuanian conductor Giedrė Šlekytė presents some of her personal favourite German and Lithuanian choral works with the Swedish Radio Choir. Brahms’ Fest und Gedenksprüche and Mendelssohn’s Richte mich, Gott are two of the most beloved Romantic pieces for choir. She also introduces us to thrilling and entertaining works by Lithuanian composers such as Vaclovas Augustinas, Bronius Kutavičius and Romualdas Gražinis.


SWEDISH RADIO CHOIR dot 2019/2020
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Participants

 

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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.

Giedrė Šlekytė is an internationally engaged conductor who has worked with orchestras such as Bruckner Orchester Linz, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Lithanian National Symphony Orchestra. She has conducted several of Sweden’s foremost orchetras such as the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

She was 1st Kapellmeister at Stadttheater Klagenfurt 2016–2018 where she was lauded for productions of operas such as La Traviata, Don Giovanni and The Abduction from the Seraglio. For the 2019–2020 season, she is engaged to do Poul Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore at Oper Leipzig and Le Nozze di Figaro at the Lithuanian National Opera in Vilnius. In 2015, she was a prize winner of the International Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen. She has also been nominated for the Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award and as Newcomer of the Year at the International Opera Awards.

Her first appearance in Berwaldhallen was during 2018’s Baltic Sea Festival where she conducted, among other works, Raminta Šerkšnytė’s oratorio Songs of Sunset and Dawn.

Approximate concert length: 1 h 40 min (with intermission)

Concert programme:
Justė Janulytė: Aquarelle
Felix Mendelssohn: Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen
Felix Mendelssohn: Trauergesang
Max Reger: selections from Eight Sacred Songs
Felix Mendelssohn: Richte mich, Gott
Johannes Brahms: Fest- und Gedenksprüche
Bronius Kutavičius: Giedantis vėžys
Vaclovas Augustinas: Tykus tykus
Onutė Narbutaitė: Vasara
Romualdas Gražinis: Sutartinė
Vaclovas Augustinas: Treputė martela