A topical opera and star pianist Yuja Wang – highlights of the 2024 Baltic Sea Festival

Esa-Pekka Salonen, star pianist Yuja Wang, the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Choir, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra are some of the highlights of the programme announced today, as tickets for the 2024 Baltic Sea Festival go on sale. With nine days of concerts, talks, workshops and art, the festival addresses the challenges of our time and aims to bring hope for the future.

The Baltic Sea Festival 2024 opens on August 23rd with a concert version of Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina. It is based on an actual, turbulent episode in Russian history that strongly resembles Russia’s current situation, with deadly political battles and ideologically driven power struggles. Khovanshchina is performed by acclaimed opera soloists, a large choir, and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in a guest performance from Helsinki, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.

— There is no other opera whose plot reads like a newspaper today. It feels very relevant to perform Khovanshchina now. We might even learn something from it, says conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, one of the founders of the Baltic Sea Festival.

On Ukraine’s Independence Day, August 24th, members of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra will play side by side with Ukrainian colleagues on Berwaldhallen’s stage under the direction of Ukrainian-British conductor Maxim Rysanov. The concert, titled “Looking Towards Ukraine”, will feature a large portion of Ukrainian music. A discussion on democracy will also be organised in collaboration with the Swedish Institute, based on the opera Khovanshchina and the current situation around the Baltic Sea, to explore possible future scenarios.

Two virtuosos – colourful super-pianist Yuja Wang and conductor extraordinaire Esa-Pekka Salonen – come together August 26th in a programme that includes Prokofiev’s youthful first piano concerto and Sibelius’ energetic Lemminkäinen Suite.

On August 30th, the Swedish Radio Choir takes us into the realm of dreams in the brand new, award-winning, 360-degree exhibition room Wisdome at the National Museum of Science and Technology. Beginning with Richard Strauss’ Der Abend, the choir moves through nocturnal sound worlds including Märt-Matis Lill’s joik-inspired Dream Stream, where the singers’ voices are transformed and electronically distorted, and Arnold Schönberg’s Friede auf Erden, which moves from cavernous darkness to the most exalted beauty.

The Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste, offers remembrance and mournfulness on August 29th, including Terra Memoria by the late Kaija Saariaho – “dedicated to those who have left us” – as well as Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten by Arvo Pärt. Alisson Kruusmaa, whose music has often been described as gentle, fragile and reflective, contributes a newly written work. There is also room for joyful exuberance, in arias on the theme of “first love” by Joseph Haydn’s pupil, Marianna Martines, sung by Yena Choi.

Mats Larsson Gothe’s fourth symphony, Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope, will be premiered by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marta Gardolińska on the last day of the festival, August 31st. The final concert also features Venezuelan composer-pianist Gabriela Montero’s piano concerto, which highlights both familiar and unknown aspects of Latin American music, and ends with Beethoven’s seventh symphony.

Sunday August 25th is the Baltic Sea Festival's family day with an open house at Berwaldhallen and activities for all ages, such as playing an instrument with young students from El Sistema, meeting the radio monkey, making crafts, and going on a tour of the Baltic Sea. Hosts from the children’s radio will read classic stories, interwoven with newly written chamber music by composer Per Egland, performed by musicians from the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The Baltic Sea Festival Science Lab, the festival's new initiative from 2023, will also return in 2024. What does research on electric bacteria sound like, or sustainable consumption? For the second year in a row, young scientists and composers team up to create works that combine Baltic Sea-related research, revolving around new visions and innovations, with specially composed music. The works are performed by the authors themselves together with musicians from the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

— This year's Baltic Sea Festival focuses on dreams and visions for a sustainable future. It permeates the musical programming as well as the festival’s broader offerings. For more than twenty years, the Baltic Sea Festival has been a musical platform for discussing sustainability and the environment, and it feels fantastic to continue to develop this forum, says Emma Nyberg, Project Manager for the Baltic Sea Festival.

— Few other institutions have the opportunity to realise a programme as rich as the Baltic Sea Festival has. This year’s festival is inspired by musical visionaries, who lead the world in new directions, and who make us lift our gaze to see new solutions, to dare to dream and help us believe that a better world is possible. In this, the festival itself also wants to be an inspiration, says Staffan Becker, Director at Berwaldhallen.

For more information about the festival, its partners, and the programme, see balticseafestival.com
For press information, please contact