Programme

This year’s European Festival: Ukrainian Spring begins with a guest performance by a chamber orchestra from the Lviv National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, one of Ukraine’s oldest and most prominent orchestras. It was founded in 1902 and has worked with some of the biggest names of music history. The orchestra regularly tours the world and has made important recordings in recent years for music labels such as Naxos, Toccata Classics and Brilliant Classics.

The theme of this year’s Ukrainian Spring is: Oh, you’re Ukrainian? – Ukrainian Stars on the World’s Stages   The festival aims to pay tribute to major cultural personalities who have made significant contributions to European culture, but whose Ukrainian origins are often unknown.

At this concert, we hear music by three of Ukraine’s biggest composers: Yevhen Stankovych, Myroslav Skoryk and Valentin Silvestrov. We also hear music by Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin, both of whom had Ukrainian roots, as well as works by Swedish composers. The concert includes guest performances by three prominent Swedish artists: mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, pianist Bengt Forsberg, guitarist Fabian Fredriksson and actor Stina Ekblad.

Lviv National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra presented a celebrated concert at Konserthuset Stockholm in 2023. We now welcome the orchestra for a more intimate chamber music concert. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to hear some of Ukraine’s best musicians in a programme filled with passion, virtuosity and unyielding strength!

Two piano quartets – one modern and one romantic classic. They are, of course, very different in style, but the intensity and melancholic expressions unite these two works. The music is performed by three string musicians from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra together with pianist Anna Christensson.

British composer Charlotte Bray (born 1982) composed the piano quartet Replay in 2011. In ten minutes, she creates a world that begins in a sort of lament, then escalates in intensity before the music thins out and slowly dies away, as if from exhaustion.

Johannes Brahms' third piano quartet in C minor is one of the finest works in the genre – a masterpiece that many consider to be his most personal and autobiographical music. Embedded in the notes are both his anguish for his sick friend Robert Schumann and his forbidden feelings for Schumann's wife, Clara Schumann. Brahms believed that the both powerful and contemplative music should be illustrated with a photo of himself and a pistol aimed at his head.

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Menu: Asparagus soup with sunflower seeds. The soup is served with sourdough bread, crispbread, butter, mineral water/light beer, coffee/tea, and a chocolate piece. Wine and beer available for purchase for those who wish.

All soups are lactose- and gluten-free. Please inform us of any dietary requirements when booking.

Konserthuset Stockholm at Hötorget is one of Sweden’s great architectural masterpieces. Created during a period of expansion in Stockholm, by the Swedish architect Ivar Tengbom, it opened in 1926. Konserthuset Stockholm was built for the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and has since the start been the dedicated venue for the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony as well as many other prestigious events.

• The guided tour is held in Swedish.
• Maximum 25 persons/tour.

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Subtitles
Subtitles in English and Swedish is activated by using the CC control in the video player.

Experience the incredible singer and musical artist Peter Jöback in concert with pianist and composer Nils-Petter Ankarblom. We hear the best of his 14 albums as well as gems from musicals and collaborations, all with a focus on the songs, voices and stories.

Earlier this year, Peter Jöback released the album “Atlas”, his fourteenth in a row, which was acclaimed by critics and listeners alike. On the album, he collaborated with Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Ed Harcourt and Kathryn Williams. Over the years he has worked with stars like Sia, Kate Pierson, Gail Ann Dorsey, and Björn and Benny, to name just a few.

Peter Jöback has also acted in major hit musicals, including Kristina från Duvemåla, Jesus Christ Superstar, Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera – a show that took him all the way to Broadway in 2013 when he tackled musical theatre’s mightiest leading role as the Phantom. That performance garnered so much attention that in 2018, in celebration of The Phantom of the Opera’s 30-year anniversary on Broadway, he was hand-selected to reprise the role by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and director Harold Prince.

Konserthuset Stockholm at Hötorget is one of Sweden’s great architectural masterpieces. Created during a period of expansion in Stockholm, by the Swedish architect Ivar Tengbom, it opened in 1926. Konserthuset Stockholm was built for the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and has since the start been the dedicated venue for the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony as well as many other prestigious events.

• The guided tour is held in Swedish.
• Maximum 25 persons/tour.

***

Subtitles
Subtitles in English and Swedish is activated by using the CC control in the video player.

Beethoven's five late string quartets are a listening adventure like no other. One of the most performed and beloved is No. 14, with opus number 131. Here, it seems as if Beethoven is searching for the freedom of thought and soul through his music. Perhaps that's also why this music speaks so strongly to us, with its warmth, imagination, and intensity, transcending all historical barriers. And the slow, dense first movement is among the most beautiful ever created for a string quartet.

The Belcea Quartet is one of the world's most prominent string quartets. The quartet has performed at Konserthuset Stockholm on several occasions previously, including in a series of concerts featuring all of Beethoven's string quartets.

Here, instead, the quartet combines Beethoven with Arnold Schönberg, whom many associate with twelve-tone music. But Schönberg was a great romantic, and the string quartet we hear here, the first of four numbered ones, was his first truly major composition. It is music brimming with wild energy and swelling late romanticism, composed in 1905 in Vienna, a city that had a significant influence on Schönberg with its vibrant art scene and Freud's psychological investigations.

This spring’s Blue House Jazz series concludes with familiar faces for the Konserthuset audience: Dee Dee Bridgewater joins the Blue House Jazz Orchestra, led by Peter Asplund and Magnus Lindgren!

It has been 20 years since the Konserthuset’s own big band was founded, and with this spring’s final concert, Asplund and Lindgren bid farewell as its artistic leaders, passing the baton to the next generation. This grand finale is a celebration at the highest level – not least since it features Dee Dee Bridgewater, the legendary vocalist and jazz diva who never fails to captivate her audience.

Dee Dee Bridgewater’s life and career are marked by both strong integrity and artistic curiosity. A three-time Grammy Award winner, she has performed at Konserthuset three times before, most recently in 2016. This, however, will be her first appearance with the Blue House Jazz Orchestra.

Full of inspiration, Robert Schumann began work on his second symphony in early December 1845. However, his depressions, poor health, and constant tinnitus meant that it wasn't until the following autumn that the symphony was completed. Yet, his severe personal condition has not left its mark on the music at all; instead, the symphony is bright and forward-looking, a resounding triumph over the darker aspects of life.

The concert begins with the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's hypnotically evocative Ciel d’hiver, Winter Sky – an arrangement of a part of her orchestral work Orion. The music is inspired by the Greek myth of the hunter Orion, who was transformed into a constellation. Saariaho's music possesses a strange beauty that makes her unique, and she is considered one of the most significant composers of our time. Saariaho passed away in 2023, and ten years earlier, she was awarded the Polar Music Prize.

Learn more about Chief Conductor Ryan Bancroft

Sibelius' Violin Concerto is one of the most performed violin concertos of the 20th century. However, its tonal language belongs to the late 19th century, and the music is warm and lyrical, dramatic and melancholic. Sibelius, himself a violinist, possibly wrote the concerto he himself would have wanted to play – albeit on a technical level far beyond his own. It is among the more challenging in the genre, as many violinists have attested.

Taking on the challenge is the Russian-born Israeli violinist Maxim Vengerov, one of the greats of our time, who has only performed with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra once before, and that was 30 years ago! He is ranked among the world's finest, and in addition to performing concerts on the major classical stages, he is a guest professor at both the International Menuhin Music Academy in Switzerland and the Royal College of Music in London.

Full of inspiration, Robert Schumann began work on his second symphony in early December 1845. However, his depressions, poor health, and constant tinnitus meant that it wasn't until the following autumn that the symphony was completed. Yet, his severe personal condition has not left its mark on the music at all; instead, the symphony is bright and forward-looking: a resounding triumph over the darker aspects of life.

The concert begins with the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's hypnotically evocative Ciel d’hiver, Winter Sky – an arrangement of a part of her orchestral work Orion. The music is inspired by the Greek myth of the hunter Orion, who was transformed into a constellation. Saariaho's music possesses a strange beauty that makes her unique, and she is considered one of the most significant composers of our time. Saariaho passed away in 2023, and ten years earlier, she was awarded the Polar Music Prize.

Learn more about Chief Conductor Ryan Bancroft

For children 3–5 years old.

Get close to the musicians in the Grünewald Hall – and discover the orchestra's string instruments in a classical concert with listening games, together with a music teacher. 

After this approx. 30-minute concert, there is a chance to try out different instruments in the foyer.