Programme

Jazz as resilience

Benjamin Schmid Jazz-Quartet performs his acclaimed program Gypsy and Groove, which blends jazz improvisations on both classical music and Ukrainian folk melodies. Rooted in the shared experiences of oppressed people, jazz and Ukrainian folk music come together to create an expression of cultural resilience and identity.

The title Tracing Ukraine indirectly expresses the festival's overall theme of Ukraine's place in Europe. Benjamin Schmid Jazz Quartet's interpretations and relaxed interactions impress as always with their precision, joy of playing and spontaneity. Since his debut in 1986 at the Salzburg Festival as Yehudi Menuhin's solo partner, Benjamin Schmid has developed into one of the most important violinists of our time.

Since his debut at the Salzburg Festival as Sir Yehudi Menuhin's solo partner in 1986, Benjamin Schmid's Benjamin Schmid has developed into one of the most important violinists of our time with his intensive concert activity, currently around 3000 live concerts. The first prize in the Carl Flesch Competition in London in 1992, where he also won the Mozart, Beethoven and audience prizes, together with further competition prizes, marked the international breakthrough for the Austrian Benjamin Schmid from Vienna. Since then he has appeared on the world's major stages with renowned orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra London, Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Leipzig Gewandthausorchester and Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich.

Benjamin Schmid is a professor and mentor to his students at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, where he was awarded the International Prize for Art and Culture. He has also been a professor at the University of Art in Bern. He gives master classes all over the world and serves as jury president of the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg and the Leopold Mozart Competition Augsburg.

In cooperation with the Ukrainian Institute in Sweden and the Embassy of Austria.

Be prepared: this is a programme that traverses emotional extremes. It begins gently and melancholic – sorrow can be beautiful – and concludes with the emotional outbursts that arise when the thunderous blows of the orchestra's thirteen hammers resonate through history, to the bone and marrow. It’s music that shakes you to the core.

In between, entirely different music by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. His first piano concerto is a musical fireworks display with dizzyingly fast runs across the entire range of the piano. At this concert, the rockets are ignited by the acclaimed British pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason.

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was only seventeen when he wrote his wonderful overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Yet it is considered one of his first mature masterpieces, and the young composer manages to capture the full range of emotions that Shakespeare presents in his universally human comedy.

Emotions, indeed. British composer Anna Clyne composed the opening piece Within Her Arms in 2009, in memory of her mother. The music for string ensemble resonates with a tenderness and warmth reminiscent of for instance the Renaissance composer John Dowland.

Closing The Confession of Isobel Gowdie was composed in 1990 by the Scottish composer James MacMillan, who is featured in the International Composer Festival this autumn. Chief Conductor Ryan Bancroft has testified to the transformative experience when he first heard the incredibly powerful work as a teenager.

Isobel Gowdie was burned at the stake during the Scottish witch trials in the 17th century. ”On behalf of the Scottish people, the work craves absolution and offers Isobel Gowdie the mercy and humanity that was denied her in the last days of her life”, writes MacMillan. In her memory, he composed an unforgettable and poignant ”requiem” for orchestra.

Read more about chief conductor Ryan Bancroft

American bass player Christian McBride performs at Konserthuset Stockholm for the first time ever. He began his career in classical music and studied at The Juilliard School in New York, but shifted his attention to jazz in the 1990s. Since then he has won Grammy awards and positioned himself as one of the absolute foremost jazz bass players of our time. 

McBride is joined for his performance at Konserthuset by his latest band – a quintet consisting of outstanding young musicians: saxophone player Nicole Glover, guitarist Ely Perlman, pianist Mike King and Savannah Harris on drums. Together, they are Christian McBride New Quintet.  

Christian McBride’s versatility is particularly evident through his work with musicians of different styles and genres, including Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Chaka Khan, Natalie Cole, James Brown, Sting, Paul McCartney, Carly Simon and Kathleen Battle.

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.

Since winning the extremely prestigious Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 2021, Canadian pianist Bruce Liu has performed on major concert stages worldwide. And he has been incredibly well-received by audiences and the music press alike. He also has not only mastered Chopin.

We hear him perform Serge Rachmaninoff’s breathtakingly beautiful Piano Concerto No. 2 –  perhaps one of the most beloved of all romantic piano concertos. This music is full of passion, longing and romance, but also comfort and serenity. This concerto replaces the previously announced Piano Concerto No. 1 by Tchaikovsky.  

We hear another kind of Russian music in Stravinsky’s ground-breaking ballet, the Rite of Spring. Its 1913 world premiere in Paris is one of the most spectacular scandals in music history. The audience booed and shrieked; Stravinsky was furious and left the venue. No, artistic innovation is not always received with open arms, but as everything matures with time, music that was initially met with resistance can evolve into a revered part of the repertoire – as with the Rite of Spring, a modern classic.

This guest performance by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra is led by the orchestra’s chief conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali.

Big band competition in the Main Hall.

• Doors opens at 8.30, Main entrance, Hötorget.
• The competition runs from 9.00–12.00 and 13.00–15.00.

The jury consists of Martin Sjöstedt, Peter Danemo och Amanda Sedgwick.

After the competition and while the jury is deliberating, concert with the Allstar Band from the Blue House Youth Jazz Festival with Per Ekdahl and the Carl Bagge Trio. Award ceremony at 16.15 in the Main Hall.

Competition for jazz ensembles in Konserthuset Stockholm's Grünewald Hall. 

• Doors opens at 8.30, Kungsgatan 43.
• The competition runs from 9.00-12.00 and 13.00-15.00.

The jury consists of Ola Bengtsson, Lina Nyberg and a representative from SKAP.

After the competition and while the jury is deliberating, concert with the Allstar Band from the Blue House Youth Jazz Festival with Per Ekdahl and the Carl Bagge Trio in the Main Hall, where the award ceremony also is held at 16.15.

Nothing beats the anticipation, and while the jury deliberates, this happens: a concert featuring an all star band from the Blue House Youth Jazz Festival, the Carl Bagge Trio, and Per Ekdahl!

Jazz pianist and band leader Carl Bagge appears both with his own quartet and, as in this case, with his trio. Over the years, he has also collaborated with artists such as Isabella Lundgren, Magnus Carlson & The Moon Ray Quintet, Svante Thuresson, and Robyn. In spring 2024, he is releasing the album Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder).

Per Ekdahl is a drummer, composer, and arranger, with a wide-ranging career spanning genres. Together with Carl Bagge, he also leads the Ekdahl-Bagge Big Band, which has garnered significant attention both domestically and internationally.

Award ceremony for the prize winners in today's competitions. The juries consists of Martin Sjöstedt, Peter Danemo, Amanda Sedgwick, Ola Bengtsson, Lina Nyberg and a representative from SKAP.

Daniela Bonfiglioli of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s first violin section performs with pianist Terés Löf, a regular guest at Konserthuset. We hear British-American Rebecca Clarke’s (1886–1979) atmospheric and passionate work for violin and piano: powerful, yet lyrical music with vast string chords and elegant piano accompaniment.

The melodies are beautiful throughout Beethoven’s so-called Spring Sonata. Beethoven composed most of his sonatas for violin and piano within a span of five years, around the turn of the century to the year 1800. The first few follow in the footsteps of Haydn and Mozart, but in the fourth and fifth sonatas, a change occurs: he takes a brand new approach and uses the expressive registers of the piano and violin to the maximum. The fifth, which we hear at this concert, is the best known.

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Menu: Green pea soup with dill and cream. The soup comes with sourdough bread, crisp bread and whipped butter, as well as a beverage, coffee/tea and a small biscuit. All soups are lactose- and gluten-free. Notify us of any special dietary requests when making your booking.