EPIPHANY CONCERT 2025
Ring out the old and sing in the new with the Berwaldhallen’s festive Epiphany concert!
Conductor Chloe Rooke leads the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Choir and soloists Rebecka Wallroth and Joachim Bäckström in a glimmering musical fire work with something for everyone! Karin Birgersson and Johan Korssell from Swedish Radio P2 will be the evenings host.
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.
British conductor Chloe Rooke (born 1996) is Emerging Artist in Residence with Residentie Orkest, The Hague, conducting the orchestra for four weeks a year and curating their outreach programme. She made her BBC Proms debut this Summer conducting the London Sinfonietta and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Highlights of 2024/2025 include debuts with Philharmonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Aurora Orchestra and Noord Nederlands Orkest, at the Palau de la Musica in Valencia and at the Opera de Rouen, and new productions of L’elisir d’amore at Garsington and of Turnage’s The Railway Children (world premiere) at Glyndebourne. She debuts at Wiener Volksoper in 2026.
Rooke was Assistant Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in 2022/2023, conducting them at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and in recordings. She won the Contemporary Award at the International Conducting Competition in Rotterdam in 2022 and the Audience Prize at the Donatella Flick-LSO Conducting Competition in 2021, and since then is regularly invited back to the London Symphony Orchestra. Passionate about music’s role in bringing social transformation, Rooke is Artistic Director of Street Orchestra Live (the UK’s first street orchestra).
Rebecka Wallroth made her debut this summer at the Verbier Festival where she sang Cherubino in a concert version of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. In October, she made her debut with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Boulanger’s Faust et Hélène conducted by Daniel Harding. The 2023/2024 season included debuts at the Wigmore Hall in London, in DR Koncerthuset with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Alma Mahler’s Seven Songs with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.
Wallroth is now in her second season with Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden’s International Opera Studio, where she has performed the roles of the Cretan woman in Mozart’s Idomeneo, Second Handmaiden of Dircé in Cherubini’s Medée and Auntie in Janáček’s Jenůfa. This season at the Staatsoper Berlin she can be seen in the roles of Cherubino, Mercedes in Carmen and Carlotta in Die schweigsame Frau.
2023 Rebecka performed the role of Lilly in the world premiere of The Ghost Factory by Daniel Nelson at Vadstena Castle and was also a finalist in the Queen Sonja Singing Competition. In 2022 she won the Karl Staud Music Prize and the Gesangwettbewerb Feruccio Tagliavini in Austria, where she was also awarded the Karl Böhm Prize for best Mozart interpretation.
In 2024, Joachim Bäckström made his role debut as Parsifal at the Royal Swedish Opera, where he also sang Cavaradossi in Tosca. He has performed the title roles of Peter Grimes in David Radok’s new production at the Janáček Theatre in Brno and Don Carlos at Theater Basel and sung Siegmund in a new production of Valkyrian at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki.
Bäckström has appeared as a guest soloist in several productions at the Gothenburg Opera with roles such as Hoffmann in The Tales of Hoffmann, Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana, Michel in Martinů’s Trois fragments de Juliette, The False Dmitri in Boris Godunov, Theseus in Monster in the Maze and Laertes in Thomas Hamlet. Last season he sang Francis in the world premiere of Mytomania by Paula af Malmborg Ward.
With the role of Don José in Carmen, Bäckström has performed at the Gothenburg Opera, the Royal Swedish Opera, the Royal Theatre, the Finnish National Opera, Malmö Opera and Opera Østfold in Norway. He has sung Tamino in The Magic Flute at the Grand Théatre de Genève, the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen and the Royal Swedish Opera, and covered the role at the Metropolitan Opera. In 2025, he returns to the Gothenburg Opera as Peter Grimes and to the Norwegian Opera in Oslo as Cavaradossi.
Bäckström has received the Birgit Nilsson, Christina Nilsson and Jussi Björling scholarships, as well as scholarships from Oscar Crawford, Odd Fellow and Idella Foundation.
Programme
Approximate concert duration: 2 hours.
Tickets
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