Epiphany Concert 2024
Enjoy crackling tunes and musical firecrackers in Berwaldhallen’s annual Epiphany concert. This year, young Latvian conductor Aivis Greters conducts the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Swedish Radio Choir. Special guests include the Swedish Radio Classical Artist, Johanna Wallroth, baritone Ola Eliasson, and stage and TV actor Mattias Nordkvist.
The concert will be broadcasted live in the Swedish Radio P2 on Friday, January 5 at 7:03 pm.
Participants
The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is a multiple-award-winning ensemble renowned for its high artistic standard and stylistic breadth, as well as collaborations with the world’s finest composers, conductors, and soloists. It regularly tours all over Europe and the world and has an extensive and acclaimed recording catalogue.
Daniel Harding has been Music Director of the SRSO since 2007, and since 2019 also its Artistic Director. His tenure will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. Two of the orchestra’s former chief conductors, Herbert Blomstedt and Esa-Pekka Salonen, have since been named Conductors Laureate, and continue to perform regularly with the orchestra.
The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, and is a cornerstone of Swedish public service broadcasting. Its concerts are heard weekly on the Swedish classical radio P2 and regularly on national public television SVT. Several concerts are also streamed on-demand on Berwaldhallen Play and broadcast globally through the EBU.
32 professional choristers make up the Swedish Radio Choir: a unique, dynamic instrument hailed by music-lovers and critics all over the world. The Swedish Radio Choir performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, as well as on tours all over the country and the world. Also, they are heard regularly by millions of listeners on Swedish Radio P2, Berwaldhallen Play and globally through the EBU.
The award-winning Latvian conductor Kaspars Putniņš was appointed Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir in 2020. Since January 2019, its choirmaster is French orchestral and choral conductor Marc Korovitch, with responsibility for the choir’s vocal development.
The Swedish Radio Choir was founded in 1925, the same year as Sweden’s inaugural radio broadcasts, and gave its first concert in May that year. Multiple acclaimed and award-winning albums can be found in the choir’s record catalogue. Late 2023 saw the release of Kaspars Putniņš first album with the choir: Robert Schumann’s Missa sacra, recorded with organist Johan Hammarström.
Swedish soprano Johanna Wallroth was thrust into the limelight when she took First Prize at the prestigious Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition in 2019.
Initially training as a dancer at the Royal Swedish Ballet School, Wallroth subsequently focused her principal study on voice and went on to graduate from Vienna’s Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst (MDW). In 2013, Johanna Wallroth made her operatic debut as Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro under Arnold Östman at Ulriksdal Palace Theatre, Stockholm. Efter that she has regularly appeared on stages in Sweden and worldwide, for example as Despina in Cosi fan tutte at Schlosstheater Schönbrunn Wien and as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte at Moscow’s Gnesin Academy. In the 19/20 season, Johanna made her role debut as Zerlin in Don Giovanni to great acclaim in a live-streamed semi-staged performance with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Music Director, Daniel Harding.
Already with an enviable experience on the concert platform, Johanna Wallroth has for example performed with Sakari Oramo at Helsinki Music Centre in Mahler, Symphony No 4 and Mozart, Requiem with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Barbara Hannigan. She was soloist on tour to Antwerp, Amsterdam, Dortmund, Köln, Hamburg and Luxembourg with Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Orchestra in Mahler, Symphony No 4.
The 2022/23 season opens with a debut at Sweden’s historic Drottningholm Festival as Leocasta in Vivaldi’s Il Giustino with the Drottningholm Theatre Orchestra under George Petrou, and sees her first appearance at Opernhaus Zürich in a ballet production choreographed by Christian Spück based on the Madrigals of Monteverdi and conducted by Christoph Koncz.
Named as Classical Artist in Residence for the 2022/23 season by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Johanna Wallroth joins the orchestra for several concerts across the season including Berg, Sieben frühe Lieder with Daniel Harding, Mozart arias with Martin Fröst and Schubert Mass in E-flat with Andràs Schiff.
Barytonen Ola Eliasson tillhör sedan 1997 Kungliga Operans solistensemble och har på Operan gjort ett trettiotal roller i mer än 20 olika operor. Flera Mozartroller: Greve Almaviva i Figaros bröllop, Papageno i Trollflöjten och Guglielmo i Così fan tutte. Därtill Figaro i Gioacchino Rossinis Barberaren i Sevilla, Fanial i Richard Strauss Rosenkavaljeren, Nixon i John Adams Nixon in China, Doktor Malatesta i Gaetano Donizettis Don Pasquale, Amfortas i Richard Wagners Parsifal och Silvio i Ruggiero Leoncavallos Pajazzo.
Han har stått på de flesta av Sveriges största scener. Förutom Kungliga Operan har han även framträtt på GöteborgsOperan, Drottningholms Slottsteater, Folkoperan och Dalhalla, och i Finland även på Finlands Nationalopera samt vid Nyslotts Operafestival. Som konsertsångare har han en bred och varierad repertoar med verk som Carl Orffs Carmina burana, Johannes Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem, Gustav Mahlers lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, samt Bachs Johannespassion och Juloratorium.
Ola Eliasson har studerat vid Kungl. Musikhögskolan i Stockholm och Stockholms Konstnärliga Högskola. Han är uppvuxen i Skellefteå och spelade slagverk, gitarr, horn och piano innan han valde att satsa på sångarkarriären.
Programme
BENNY ANDERSSON: Machopolska (arr. Göran Arnberg)
KURT WEILL/OGDEN NASH: I’m a Stranger Here Myself from One Touch of Venus
FREDERICK LOEWE/ALAN J. LERNER: They Call the Wind Maria from Paint Your Wagon
ULRIKA EMANUELSSON: Johansson (based on music by Hugo Alfvén)
RICHARD ROGERS/OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II: The Hills Are Alive from The Sound of Music (Swedish text by Kristina Lugn)
HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS: Chôros No. 10 “Rasga o coração”
OLLE ADOLPHSON: Trubbel (arr. Ingvar Karkoff)
GIOACCHINO ROSSINI: Finale from the Overture to William Tell
GAETANO DONIZETTI/GIOVANNI RUFFINI: Pronta io son from Don Pasquale
ZEQUINHA DE ABREU: Tico-Tico no Fubá (arr. Cliff Colnot)
Intermission
RICHARD WAGNER: Prelude to act 3 of Lohengrin
RUGGIERO LEONCAVALLO: Bell Chorus from Pagliacci
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL/NICOLA FRANCESCO HAYM: Da tempeste il legno infranto from Giulio Cesare in Egitto
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL/CHARLES JENNENS: Why do the nations so furiously rage together from Messiah
HANNA HAVRYLETS: Prayer to the Holy Mother of God
ANTONIO VIVALDI: 1st and 2nd movements from Violin Concerto in F minor “Winter”
KURT WEILL: Mack the Knife from The Threepenny Opera (arr. Ingvar Karkoff)
GIAN CARLO MENOTTI: What a curse for a woman, is a timid man from The Old Maid and the Thief
CLAUDE-MICHEL SCHÖNBERG/ALAIN BOUBLIL: Stars from Les Misérables
LARS-ERIK LARSSON: Epilogue from Four Vignettes to A Winter’s Tale
MITCH LEIGH/JOE DARION: The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha (arr. Karl-Johan Ankarblom)ProgP
Approximate concert length: 2 h 35 min (with intermission)
Tickets
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