The Cleveland Orchestra to play in Helsinki Festival
The Cleveland Orchestra, one of the world’s best-known symphony orchestras, will appear in Helsinki as part of next year’s Helsinki Festival classical music programme. Angélique Kidjo and Samuli Putro, who are celebrating their anniversaries, have confirmed performances in the programme at the iconic venue of Huvila.
The Cleveland Orchestra, which ranks among the Big Five prestigious American orchestras, returns to Finland after an absence of decades. The orchestra, which has only rarely visited the Nordic countries, last performed in Finland in 1965, and in Sweden and Norway in 1979. The orchestra was founded in 1918 and for the past 22 years its musical director has been one of the world’s most distinguished conductors, the Austrian Franz Welser-Möst, who previously visited Helsinki Festival with the Vienna Philharmonic in 2015. The Cleveland Orchestra will perform Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony at Musiikkitalo in Helsinki on Wednesday 28 August. The soloist in Schumann’s Piano Concerto will be Icelandic pianist Vikingur Ólafsson, who performed in a sold-out hall at this year’s Helsinki Festival.
Angélique Kidjo and Samuli Putro to star in the Huvila programme
Angélique Kidjo, who has delighted the festival audience twice earlier and whose performance was sold out at Huvila in 2022, is making a spectacular return to Helsinki for her 40th anniversary tour. The West African music star and five-time Grammy winner will perform at Huvila on Thursday, August 29.
Samuli Putro will celebrate his 20-year solo career next year. The main concert of his anniversary year will take place at Huvila on Saturday 17 August. The concert, which is a cross-section of Putro’s career ranging from the song Elämä on juhla to the hits of the album Ikävä mummoa, will feature the artist solo and with changing line-ups from different stages in his career.
Image: Roger Mastroianni