Swedish Radio Choir Sings Brahms & Nørgård
Julia Selina Blank and the Swedish Radio Choir highlight the choral works by Per Nørgård in this programme, particularly Singe die Gärten, mein Herz for choir, harp and cello. Also featured is Iranian composer Aftab Darvishi’s And the world stopped, lacking you… based on a text by English nurse Vera Brittain, who became an outspoken poet and pacifist after the first world war. The concert will be presented in Swedish by Janna Vettergren.
The concert will be broadcasted on Berwaldhallen Play and in the Swedish Radio Friday, October 13 at 7 pm.
Participants
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.
Julia Selina Blank is frequently engaged as guest conductor and chorus master throughout Europe by ensembles like the Bavarian radio chorus, the MDR radio chorus, the NDR Vocal Ensemble, Rias Chamber Choir, Swedish Radio Choir, Slovenian Philharmonic Choir, Chorwerk Ruhr and the Norwegian Soloist´s Choir.
As co-founder and conductor of the JSB-Ensemble Oslo, she has created and lead projects combining early and baroque music with contemporary pieces. The ensemble consists of some of Norway´s leading ensemble singers and baroque instrumentalists and focuses on performing especially J.S. Bach’s vocal works in a small vocal group.
Blank has been conducting amateur choirs for more than 15 years. Currently, she directs the award-winning chamber choir Kammerkoret NOVA in Oslo.
In 2021, Blank was awarded the second prize at the Eric Ericson Award and first prize both at the World Choral Conducting Competition in Hong Kong 2019 and the London International Choral Conducting Competition 2018. She was also one of the finalist at the competition German Choral Conductors Prize 2021 with Rias Chamber Choir Berlin.
Blank has studied choral conducting with Michael Gläser in Munich, Fredrik Malmberg in Stockholm and Grete Pedersen in Oslo. She supplemented her studies with several master classes led by conductors like Anders Eby, Stefan Parkman, Justin Doyle and Daniel Reuss.
Several years as a singer in ambitious youth choirs like the World Youth Choir and the Bavarian State Youth Choir in Germany and professional ensembles like the Munich Philharmonic Choir contribute to Julia´s work as a choral conductor.
She currently lives in Oslo, Norway, with her family.
Since 1999, Johanna Sjunnesson has been a cellist with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and she also comfortably ventures beyond the boundaries of orchestral music. As a soloist, she has performed at Berwaldhallen, the Concert Hall, Cirkus, and the Blue Hall, as well as at the Grammis Gala and the Polar Music Prize Banquet, where she has performed her own compositions.
In her own compositions, Johanna is inspired by various genres, from baroque and classical music to ambient and electronica. Her music has been played on both radio and television, and in the fall of 2023, an album featuring music for solo cello and another in ambient style, recorded with Iceland-based Mikael Lind, will be released. Lind also participated in the EP ”Celistial” released in 2021, where Johanna interprets music by Marin Marais, Henry Purcell, and Johann Sebastian Bach, among others.
Johanna Sjunnesson studied at the Royal College of Music with Elemér Lavotha, as well as abroad through several major scholarships.
Programme
Approximate duration: 1 hr 20 mins
Tickets
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