Concert with the RSPO Orchestra Academy

Since 2016, an orchestra academy has been affiliated with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. The international RSPO Orchestra Academy is a one-year advanced academic programme for young musicians. The programme is run in collaboration with the Department of Music and Art at Linnaeus University in Växjö. Under the guidance of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s section leaders, the musicians receive individual coaching, chamber music training and orchestral experience.

They also showcase their talents through a series of public chamber music concerts – as here, with this year’s academy students under the direction of The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s Chief Conductor Ryan Bancroft. It begins with music by the American pioneer Amy Beach. Her Theme and Variations for flute and string quartet, composed in 1916, is music of both playfulness and refinement. The melodic theme of the variations is drawn from one of her songs, Indian Lullaby.

Richard Wagner’s poignant and beautiful Siegfried Idyll was composed as a gift to his wife, Cosima, on their wedding anniversary, 25 December 1870 – something reflected in the music’s intimacy. Arnold Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1 from 1906, by contrast, is music in constant transformation: searching and unpredictable, charged with musical drama that stretches the boundaries of tonality.