Thomas Søndergård Leads Minnesota Orchestra in Nordic Soundscapes Festival, January 10-18

Programs celebrate northern Europe’s orchestral music of past and present; pre-concert extras include performances from Nordic partner organizations, outdoor firepits, Scandinavian treats and spirits

January 10-11 concerts feature Gabriel Campos Zamora in the Nielsen Clarinet Concerto, as well as Bent Sørensen’s Evening Land and Outi Tarkiainen’s Midnight Sun Variations, among other works

A January 12 chamber music program offers music of Anders Hillborg, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Kari Sundström, alongside Nielsen and Grieg

January 16-18 concerts spotlight Johan Dalene in the Nielsen Violin Concerto and works by Matre, Alfvén and Grieg

Across three different programs, six concerts and ten days, January 10-18, Music Director Thomas Søndergård and the Minnesota Orchestra will traverse the landscape of Nordic music at Orchestra Hall, exploring two concertos by Nielsen and music by Grieg and Sibelius, as well as a new generation of Nordic composers whose evocative works push the boundaries of what came before. 

The first concert week features Principal Clarinet Gabriel Campos Zamora in the daring and expressive Nielsen Clarinet Concerto alongside three contemporary works: Icelandic composer Daníel Barnason’s Air to Breath from Bow to String, Danish composer Bent Sørensen’s Evening Land and Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen’s Midnight Sun Variations. Led by Søndergård, the concert opens with a Concert Overture by Sweden’s Elfrida Andrée and closes with Finlandia by Jean Sibelius. Performed at Orchestra Hall, the concerts are held on Friday, January 10, at 8 p.m. and on Saturday, January 11, at 2 p.m.

On Sunday, January 12, at 2 p.m., at Orchestra Hall, Minnesota Orchestra musicians offer an afternoon of chamber music spotlighting music of Nordic composers Edvard Grieg, Anders Hillborg, Carl Nielsen, Kari Sundström and Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

In the second festival week, Johan Dalene, Gramophone’s 2022 Young Artist of the Year, performs Nielsen’s formidable Violin Concerto in a program that also features Norwegian composer Ørjan Matre’s Lyric Pieces—a set of orchestral musings inspired by Edvard Grieg’s piano works—and ballet music from Sweden’s Hugo Alfvén in the wonderous Mountain King Suite. Led by Søndergård, the concert concludes with selections from Grieg’s Peer Gynt. Performed at Orchestra Hall, the concerts are on Thursday, January 16, at 11 a.m.; Friday, January 17, at 8 p.m.; and Saturday, January 18, at 7 p.m.

Concertgoers are invited to arrive early to Orchestra Hall throughout the festival for an immersive sampling of activities that celebrate Nordic culture, cuisine, cocktails and design. Leading into Orchestra Hall, the Cargill Commons will be outfitted with outdoor firepits, seating options and a warming house by 612 Sauna available to tour. The indoor Target Atrium will transform into a cozy hygge lounge and Nordic Bar offering glögg and Vikre Distillery drink specials. Savory and sweet treats will be available from Krown Bakery, while Danish Teak Classics furniture will display in the lobby. Throughout the Roberta Mann Grand Foyer, Nordic partner organizations—including the American Swedish Institute, Danish American Center, Finnfest USA, Icelandic Hekla Club, Museum of Danish America and Norway House—will showcase their organizations and offer free performances of folk and choral music traditions. (See calendar listing for details.)

NORDIC LANDSCAPES AND PORTRAITS (January 10-11, 2025) 

“It is like we are sending audiences a set of musical postcards from each of these distinct Nordic places and voices,” says Music Director Thomas Søndergård of the Nordic Soundscapes festival.

The first musical postcard comes from Sweden in the 1870s. At that time, composer Elfrida Andrée was a trailblazer in the midst of a feminist political movement across Scandinavia. She became Sweden’s first professional female organist at the Gothenburg Cathedral and the first woman to conduct an orchestra in Sweden. Her Concert Overture was one of her earliest works, a bright and joyful opener powered by lush strings.

A centerpiece of the program is Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto, a work described by Nielsen biographer Robert Simpson as “the greatest since Mozart.” Completed in 1928, the concerto was the Danish composer’s last orchestral work—he died just three years after its premiere. Full of humor and experimental elements, it is written in one uninterrupted movement, depicting an unruly dialogue between soloist and orchestra. Musicologist Michael Steinberg described the concerto as “a piece for an actor who happens to play the clarinet wonderfully.” The dramatic soloist in these performances is Gabriel Campos Zamora. A native of Costa Rica, Campos Zamora is the son of jazz musicians who came to the U.S. and  studied at Interlochen Center for the Arts and the Colburn Conservatory. He joined the Minnesota Orchestra as principal clarinet in 2016.

The program is rounded out with music from three contemporary composers. Currently an artist in collaboration with the Iceland Symphony, Daníel Bjarnason originally wrote Air to Breath, the final movement of Bow to String, as a work for solo cello. He orchestrated it in 2011 for performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. “I wanted to make music that was somehow frozen in time, like a painting,” he said, so that “you are looking at the same object from different angles and in different light.” Principal Cello Anthony Ross is the featured player.

Danish composer and 2018 Grawemeyer Award winner Bent Sørensen was also inspired by a visual image when he wrote Evening Land in 2017 for the New York Philharmonic. The work juxtaposes a visual memory from his childhood—"I am looking out of the window, and there is a very special evening light over the fields—far away there are trees and a cow”—with a more recent vision of bustling activity and flashes of light in New York.

Finland’s Outi Tarkiainen was drawn by the endless light of the Artic Circle to write Midnight Sun Variations in 2019 for the BBC Philharmonic. “My son was born on the night when the summer’s last warm day gave way to a dawn shrouded in autumnal mist,” she wrote in the score, “Midnight Sun Variations is also about giving birth to new life, when the woman and child within her part company, restoring her former self as the light fades into winter.”

The concert concludes with one of classical music’s most magnificent, stirring anthems: Jean Sibelius’ Finlandia. Written in 1899 while Finland was still under Russian rule, Finlandia was an ode to Sibelius’ homeland and its people who were yearning for independence. Sibelius explained why the piece symbolized so much, “We fought 600 years for our freedom, and I am part of the generation which achieved it. Freedom! My Finlandia is the story of this fight. It is the song of our battle, our hymn of victory.”

NORDIC TALES AND FOLKLORE (January 16-18, 2025) 

The second week’s program opens with Norwegian composer Ørjan Matre’s Lyric Pieces for Orchestra. Commissioned and premiered by the Bergen Philharmonic in 2019, the work reimagines six miniature solo piano pieces by Edvard Grieg, transforming them into modern “remixes” for full orchestra.

Swedish-Norwegian composer Johan Dalene makes his Minnesota Orchestra debut playing the Nielsen Violin Concerto; his 2019 performance of the work propelled him to win the prestigious Carl Nielsen Competition and his subsequent BIS recording of the Concerto won accolades, with Gramophone noting Dalene has “the measure of a piece it’s notoriously difficult to get the measure of – technically and aesthetically.” Completed in 1912, the Violin Concerto both harkens back to the 19th century with its big themes and sweeping gestures and looks forward to the 20th century with a modern structure and harmonic language. “The music is full of surprises, unexpected harmonic twists and sudden changes of mood,” says Dalene. “Here we find pride, joy and an exquisitely beautiful and melancholy slow movement which ends with a question mark. There is an enormous wealth of detail, and every time I return to Nielsen’s music, I find something new.”

Hugo Alfvén’s Mountain King Suite also dates from the early 20th century. Premiered in 1923, the suite is a 15-minute distillation of an evening-length ballet; its mix of Swedish folk melodies and tales was emblematic of Alfvén’s work and helped to make him one of Sweden’s most eminent classical composers of the 20th century.

The concert concludes with a four-movement suite from a beloved work by one of the giants of Nordic music: Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg. In 1874 Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen asked his countryman Grieg to compose incidental music for a dramatic production of his mock-heroic poem called Peer Gynt. The music Grieg wrote, and later encapsulated into a pair of suites, became perhaps his best-known composition, capturing the wild adventures of Peer Gynt with drama, melodic invention and rich orchestral color.

About Thomas Søndergård

Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård began his tenure as the 11th music director of the Minnesota Orchestra in the 2023-24 season. A highly regarded conductor in both the orchestral and opera spheres, he has earned a reputation for incisive interpretations of works by composers from his native Denmark, a great versatility in a broad range of standard and modern repertoire, and a collaborative approach with the musicians he leads. Since 2018 Søndergård has been music director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and prior to that post he served as principal conductor and musical advisor to the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and then as principal conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. His upcoming season engagements include leading the Aarhus Symphony (works by Grieg and Nielsen) and the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Strauss’ Elektra). In Minneapolis, he conducts concert performances of Puccini’s Turandot featuring soprano Christine Goerke in May.

About the Minnesota Orchestra

Founded in 1903, the Grammy Award-winning Minnesota Orchestra is known for acclaimed performances in its home state and around the world; award-winning educational programs; and a commitment to building the orchestral repertoire of tomorrow, all based on the belief that music is for everyone. Each year, Minnesota Orchestra concerts and recordings are seen and heard by more than two million people via television, radio, digital streaming, and on-demand platforms. Led by Music Director Thomas Søndergård, the Orchestra makes its home in the heart of downtown Minneapolis at Orchestra Hall, a venue renowned for its brilliant acoustics and modern design that is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary.

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Minnesota Orchestra Nordic Soundscapes
NORDIC LANDSCAPES AND PORTRAITS 

Friday, January 10, 2025, 8 p.m. / Orchestra Hall
Saturday, January 11, 2025, 2 p.m. / Orchestra Hall 

Minnesota Orchestra
Thomas Søndergård, conductor
Gabriel Campos Zamora, clarinet

ANDRÉE                                       Concert Overture
NIELSEN                                      Clarinet Concerto
BJARNASON                               Air to Breath, from Bow to String
SØRENSEN                                  Evening Land
TARKIAINEN                              Midnight Sun Variations
SIBELIUS                                      Finlandia

Tickets: $15-$106 (Free tickets available for young listeners age 6-18 with Hall Pass).

Pre-concert Activities:

Jan 10, 7:15 pm Finnish choral music by SF100 Chorus, in partnership with FinnFest USA and Finlandia Foundation, Twin Cities/Finnish American Cultural Association

Jan 11, 1:15 pm Taylor Ann Grand singing Danish classical and folk music with Lisa Jensen on piano in partnership with the Danish American Center

Food and beverages from Krown Bakery and Vikre Distillery. Learn and explore from Danish Teak Classics, Ingebretsen’s, 612 Sauna, and more.

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Chamber Music
CHAMBER MUSIC IN THE HALL

Sunday, January 12, 2025, 2 p.m. / Orchestra Hall

Musicians of the Minnesota Orchestra

SUNDSTRÖM                             Chromatic Fantasy for Solo Cello
NIELSEN                                Serenata in Vano (Serenade in Vain)
HILLBORG                                  Kongsgaard Variations for String Quartet
THORVALDSDOTTIR              Spectra
GRIEG                                           String Quartet No. 1 

Tickets: Choose Your Price, starting at $5 (Free tickets available for young listeners age 6-18 with Hall Pass). 

Pre-concert Activities:

Jan 12, 1:15 pm Icelandic folk songs performed by Howard Hobbs and Isaac Muscanto in partnership with the Hekla Club

Food and beverages from Krown Bakery and Vikre Distillery. Learn and explore from Danish Teak Classics, Ingebretsen’s, 612 Sauna, and more.

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Minnesota Orchestra Nordic Soundscapes

NORDIC TALES AND FOLKLORE 

Thursday, January 16, 2025, 11 a.m. / Orchestra Hall
Friday, January 17, 2025, 8 p.m. / Orchestra Hall *
Saturday, January 18, 2025, 7 p.m. / Orchestra Hall 

Minnesota Orchestra
Thomas Søndergård, conductor
Johan Dalene, violin

MATRE                          Lyric Pieces
NIELSEN                        Violin Concerto
ALFVÉN                         Mountain King Suite
GRIEG                             Suite No. 1 from Peer Gynt

Tickets: $15-$106 (Free tickets available for young listeners age 6-18 with Hall Pass).

*The January 17 concert will be broadcast live on Twin Cities PBS (TPT 2) and available for streaming at minnesotaorchestra.org and on the Orchestra’s social media channels.

Pre-concert Activities:

Jan 16, 10:15 pm Danish Folk Music and Crafts in partnership with the Museum of Danish America
Jan 17, 7:15 pm Swedish Folk Music by Renee Vaughan and the Nordstär Ensemble in partnership with the American Swedish Institute
Jan 18, 6:15 pm Norwegian Choral Music by The Mindekirken Choir in partnership with the Mindekirken Lutheran Church and Norway House

Food and beverages from Krown Bakery and Vikre Distillery. Learn and explore from Danish Teak Classics, Ingebretsen’s, 612 Sauna and more. 

TICKET PURCHASING INFORMATION

Tickets and subscription packages can be purchased now at minnesotaorchestra.org or by calling 612-371-5656. For groups of 10 or more, call 612-371-5662.

The 2024-2025 Classical Season is presented by Ameriprise Financial.

The Nordic Soundscapes Festival is generously sponsored by Kathy and Al Lenzmeier.

The Hall Pass program makes free tickets available for young listeners ages 6 to 18 for select Classical and Symphony in 60 concerts, and all kids under 18 for Family concerts. The program is sponsored by Cynthia and Jay Ihlenfeld. 

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

All programs, artists, dates, times and prices subject to change.

PRESS CONTACTS

Gwen Pappas, Vice President of Communications and Public Relations
gpappas@mnorch.org 

Alexandra Robinson, Content and Communications Manager
arobinson@mnorch.org