Program

In the late 19th century, French art music began to adopt influences from exotic far-off lands such as East Asia and the Middle East. Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) wrote a number of works inspired by far-away cultures and landscapes. The Arabian Nights story collection prompted him to write his first orchestral work, the concert overture Shéhérazade (1898). This was poorly received at its premiere in Paris in spring 1899; critics panned Ravel for simply imitating others. While the influence of Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov is discernible, the score is of a high technical quality and evokes a captivating fairy-tale atmosphere. Ravel nevertheless withdrew the work, and it was not published until 1975.

Ahmet Adnan Saygun (1907–1991) studied with Vincent d’Indy in Paris. He returned to his native Türkiye in 1931 and created a career advancing cultural activities as a teacher, musicologist and conductor. He was in favour of westernising Türkiye and supported the reforms of President Kemal Atatürk. He and four other composers formed a group known as the Turkish Five.

Saygun’s musical idiom combines Western and Soviet Neo-Classicism with tunes and modes from Turkish folk music. His stylistic influences include composers such as Martinů, Shostakovich, Honegger and Bartók, with whom Saygun worked as an assistant when Bartók was collecting folk tunes in Türkiye in 1936.

Saygun’s output includes the oratorio Yunus Emre, operas, concertos, four string quartets and choral works. His music was internationally quite well known in its day, being performed by distinguished artists such as conductor Leopold Stokowski.

Saygun wrote five symphonies. His first was completed in 1953 and is dedicated to Austrian conductor Franz Litschauer. The work incorporates themes from Saygun’s String Quartet no. 1 (1947) but with a broader and more symphonic treatment. There are four movements: ‘Allegro’, ‘Adagio’, ‘Allegretto’ and ‘Allegro assai’. 

The most famous composition of Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) by a wide margin is the Boléro. Dancer Ida Rubinstein once asked Ravel to orchestrate a couple of piano pieces by Isaac Albéniz for a ballet performance. Ravel began working on the project, only to discover that orchestral versions of the pieces already existed and his contribution was not needed after all. This did not upset him, however, as he had already begun to think of writing a Spanish-themed piece of his own.

The Boléro was premiered at the Paris Opera on 22 November 1928 with a choreography by Bronislava Nizhinska and staging by Alexander Benois. The orchestra of the Opera was conducted by Walther Straram. The performance caused a sensation, and Boléro went on to become one of the most frequently performed works in the Western orchestral repertoire. Ravel was quite astonished by its huge success, since he regarded it as a throwaway experiment.

The Boléro is a single crescendo of grand proportions: the music begins extremely quietly and gains force as more instruments join in. The incessant side drum rhythm keeps the energy going.

The piece relies on the compelling power of repetition: at some point, the listener is inevitably drawn in to follow the progress of the music with the intensity of watching a thriller. The most spectacular moment in the piece comes near the end, when after more than 10 minutes in C major the music shifts without warning to E major.

Jan Söderblom (b. 1970) is a Finnish violinist and conductor. He studied conducting at the Sibelius Academy under Jorma Panula and Leif Segerstam and has since worked with major Finnish orchestras as well as with several international ensembles, including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Danish National Chamber Orchestra, and the Norrköping and Helsingborg Symphony Orchestras.

Söderblom’s recent conducting engagements include concerts with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, as well as Prokofiev’s Cinderella at the Finnish National Opera.

Söderblom is an experienced opera conductor, and has led premieres such as Thomas Jennefelt’s Sport och fritid and Veli-Matti Puumala’s Anna Liisa, the latter also receiving a critically acclaimed recording.

Jan Söderblom is well known to audiences of the HPO both as the orchestra’s concertmaster (2014–2025) and as a conductor; he most recently conducted the orchestra in January 2025. He is Artistic Director of the Finnish Chamber Orchestra and also leads several music festivals in Finland.

Soprano Emma Kajander (b. 1997) made her debut at the Finnish National Opera in the leading role of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera in 2024. Her engagements for the current season include Pamina in Mozart’s Zauberflöte at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. She will also appear as a soloist with Jyväskylä Sinfonia in Handel’s Messiah. Next summer Kajander will be heard at the Bregenz Festival, performing in the world premiere of Daníel Bjarnason’s Passion of the Common Man and in Benjamin Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra.

Kajander won the 2025 Lappeenranta Singing Competition. The previous year she placed second both in the Kangasniemi Singing Competition and in the Helsinki Lied Competition. She also won the first prize in the Nordic Havets Röst competition in 2023. She has been awarded the Martti Talvela Foundation Prize.

Kajander is currently studying at the Sibelius Academy with Outi Kähkönen. She has additionally studied with, among others, Irina Gavrilovici, Karita Mattila, and Camilla Nylund.

The principle of putting on regular concerts given by an orchestra of top musicians has remained right up to the present day in the over 140 years since the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra was formed. It premiered most of the symphonic works by Jean Sibelius with the composer himself conducting, and continues its commitment to contemporary music by commissioning works by composers both Finnish and foreign. 

Now a band of 102 musicians, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra annually performs to a total audience of over 110,000 and has become an important constituent of its host city’s cultural capital. It also reaches people who for one reason or another cannot attend concerts at the Helsinki Music Centre, for in addition to making international tours, it sends small ensembles out across the city, provides opportunities for young people to perform and, through its active education programme, is able to make contact with special groups. For the third time it invited an entire age group – this time all the children born in Helsinki in 2020 – to enjoy music with their families over the next seven years as members of the HPO Kids -program.  

The HKO Screen concerts and background interviews screened live or recorded on the Internet makes the process of creating a piece of music even more readily accessible. 

The orchestra has a three-member Artistic Leadership Team, which comprises Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Co-director Pekka Kuusisto and Composer-in-Residence Anna Thorvaldsdottir.