Osmo Vänskä

The Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam appointed Sebastian Fagerlund their composer-in-residence, resulting in a string of exciting works, new departures and enriching encounters.

This double album is the issue of three concerts given in Minnesota in February 2016, and Olli Kortekangas’ Migrations was a commission for that occasion. Migrations must have caused many in its initial audiences to reflect upon their own origins, and it retains its ability to touch the heart in this recording.

"The hallmarks of Vänskä's conducting, we've long since learned, are a meticulous attention to detail - if it's in the score, you'll hear it in the performance - and an often startling rhythmic energy."

The wooden architecture of the new Sibelius Hall in Lahti provided both traditional and modern support to the Lahti Symphony’s performance of Sibelius’ Finlandia at the hall’s debut on March 9th [2000].The hall’s intriguing combination of proven and new should also help efforts to export Finnish wood-construction expertise and design. Externally, the hall was almost completed in time for the inaugural concert, but it will still take months to “tune” the acoustics. The New York firm Artec and its acoustics team want to polish the hall's timbre to its utmost.

Paavo Berglund, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Osmo Vänskä, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, and Neeme Järvi are today's great Sibelius conductors, carrying on a tradition that began with Robert Kajanus and Sir Thomas Beecham. What are their thoughts on the Finnish composer?