At the final concert of the Eric Ericson Award competition in the Swedish Radio Concert Hall Berwaldhallen in Stockholm, the German conductor Alexander Lüken was elected winner of the competition, by an international jury. The prize consists of engagements with ten European radio choirs and a prize sum of 100 000 Swedish kronor (10.000 Euros) awaits the winner.

Young choral conductors from around the world applied to the Eric Ericson Award 2024. The selection committee has now chosen eight semi-finalists to compete in Stockholm in October: Simon Arlasjö (Sweden), João Barros (Portugal), Jurgita Česonytė (Lithuania), Anastasija Kildiša (Latvia), Alexander Lüken (Germany), Heide Müller (Germany), Marcel Ortega i Martí (Spain) and Joe Tobin (UK).

A new concert season with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir in Berwaldhallen is coming up, with theme of “Love and Death” running like a common thread throughout. Daniel Harding makes his last season as Music Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Swedish Radio Choir celebrates its 100th jubilee. The season begins with the Baltic Sea Festival, featuring world-renowned artists such as pianist Yuja Wang, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra. Visions and dreams are recurring themes in the festival programme. See separate release about the Baltic Sea Festival. (//news.cision.com/berwaldhallen/r/a-topical-opera-and-star-pianist-yuja-wang---highlights-of-the-2024-baltic-sea-festival,c3967483) Go to Swedish version-> (//news.cision.com/se/berwaldhallen/r/radiokoren-fyller-100---daniel-hardings-final---berwaldhallen-slapper-ny-konsertsasong,c3964194)

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's partners Stockholm University, Voksenåsen Music Academies and Formas have selected twelve international participants for a new round of the Baltic Sea Festival Science Lab – where research is presented in specially composed music.

Two internationally renowned conductors, Maxim Emelyanychev and Krista Audere, are appointed to the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir respectively as Principal Guest Conductors. This gives them the opportunity to work and develop together with the ensembles over time.

Applications are open as of today for the Eric Ericson Award, a prestigious international competition for young choral conductors. The event will take place at the Swedish Radio Concert Hall Berwaldhallen on 23­–26 October 2024, the finalists are invited to conduct the Swedish Radio Choir. The total amount awarded is SEK 150,000 and the winner will lead several prominent radio choirs within the EBU over the coming concert seasons. This makes the Eric Ericson Award the most prestigious competition for choral conductors in the world. The competition is arranged by the Swedish Radio, in collaboration with the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. 

Baltic Sea Festival Science Lab is a new Baltic Sea Festival event at the Swedish Radio concert hall Berwaldhallen jointly produced with Stockholm University and Voksenåsen Music Academies. Through this project nine young scientists from the Baltic Sea Region will be paired with nine young composers. Together, they will turn scientific research into music that will be performed by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra during the Baltic Sea Festival 2023. Now open for applications.

The Baltic Sea Festival is more relevant than ever as it celebrates its 20th anniversary. The many sustainability challenges that are facing the nations bordering the Baltic Sea will be communicated through music and exceptional concert events featuring international stars who will perform new and familiar works. The audience will also be invited to participate in existential discussions. This year, the festival focuses on the importance of education in achieving sustainability through the democratic process.

Daniel Harding extends his contract as Music Director and Artistic Director for the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra until at least 2025. "There is no doubt that here in Stockholm, in Berwaldhallen, I have found my musical family.  The bond between us is immense and the spark that we had at the start seems only brighter and more intense." 

At the final concert of the Eric Ericson Award competition in the Swedish Radio Concert Hall Berwaldhallen in Stockholm, the latvian conductor Krista Audere was elected winner of the competition, by an international jury. Harry Bradford from Great Britain and Julia Selina Blank from Germany also participated in the final. Concerts with ten European radio choirs and a prize sum of 100 000 Swedish kronor (10.000 Euros) awaits the winner.

The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra with its Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen open Baltic Sea Festival on 9 September 2021. Rebirth is the theme of the whole Festival and in its opening concert, both Anders Hillborg’s Kongsgaard Variations and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Fog, reimagine classical masterpieces. Salonen’s programme culminates in Sibelius Second Symphony and its heavenly apotheosis. The theme of rebirth continues through the Festival with Klaus Mäkelä and Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and Kaspars Putniņš Radio Choir programme focussing on the Baltic Seasons and the renewal of life. And the Festival closes with Handel's Messiah – on 18 September – the ultimate story of rebirth and hope. 

Out of more than 90 applicants, eight young conductors have progressed to the prestigious Eric Ericson Award competition, which takes place at Berwaldhallen, Swedish Radio's concert hall, in October. After one month of work, the Selection Committee has selected an international starting field with participants from Germany, Latvia, England, France and Russia.  

As always, music is centre stage as the Baltic Sea Festival offers up a festival week brimming with content from the 9[th] to the 18[th] of September, with it's hoome base in the Swedish Radio Concert Hall, Berwaldhallen. This year’s festival centres on hope for the future, and the highly anticipated new beginning many of us are waiting for. A new beginning for exchange and collaboration across borders, and for conversations about the issues that bind us together. The theme is rebirth and culture’s role when society opens up again. New for this year are the Baltic Sea Studio’s daily broadcasts, which make the festival even more accessible to international audiences. The following concert season offers many musical highlights, some that can be already revealed.

The St John Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach will be performed in a unique way in Berwaldhallen, the concert hall of Swedish Radio on Good Friday, April 2. The performance will be available through Swedish Radio P2 and also for viewing on Berwaldhallen Play. A star cast of Swedish and international singers will participate: Julia Kleiter, Ann Hallenberg, Andrew Staples, Christian Gerhaher and Matthew Rose. Together with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir, led by Music Director Daniel Harding, it will be a world class musical experience, one of a kind in these days.

The Swedish Radio, in collaboration with the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), reinstates the Eric Ericson Award, an international competition for young choir conductors. The competition will take place in October 2021 in the Swedish Radio concert hall, Berwaldhallen, in Stockholm for the first time since 2009. The prize money amounts to SEK 150,000 and the winner will also have the opportunity to work with 11 prominent radio choirs within the EBU in upcoming concert seasons. Altogether, this makes the Eric Ericson Award the most prestigious competition for choir conductors in the world.

Having maintained weekly live broadcast concerts throughout the last months, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is now reunited with its Music Director Daniel Harding for his first concerts after ten weeks of quarantine and the culmination of the orchestra’s season. Joining them at home in Berwaldhallen is the Swedish Radio Choir and an elite cast of singers. 

The Baltic Sea Festival, which was to take place in August 2020, has been cancelled.  Even though it had been intended to make the festival a digital project, the planning conditions due to the Covid-19 outbreak have finally made that impossible.

Through music and discussions, the Baltic Sea Festival wants to highlight the importance of tolerance, democracy and shared responsibility for a sustainable region. The programme spans seven festival days of first-class music and seven discussions, where some of the most interesting personalities from our region come together. The discussions, which will take place in front of audiences in cities around the Baltic Sea, are an integral part of the festival, and will be broadcast live in the host cities as well as at Berwaldhallen. Using digital technology, the festival and music can reach out live throughout the Baltic Sea area. As always, music is at the heart of the festival and just as in previous years, the Baltic Sea Festival offers a week of exhilarating music.  

Multiple award-winning Latvian conductor Kaspars Putniņš is appointed Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir from the 2020-21 season. It is one of the most coveted conducting positions on the international choral scene. The last Chief Conductor was Peter Dijkstra who ended his tenure in 2018, after 11 years.

Peter Dijkstra and Tõnu Kaljuste have each been appointed Conductor Laureate of the Swedish Radio Choir as of the beginning of this season. Both of them have been Chief Conductors of the Choir, a world famous ensemble and institution in Swedish music life, formed in the 1920s at the same time as its parent organization, Sveriges Radio.

What does ex-president Tarja Halonen, chief conductor Alan Gilbert, Sami pop artist Sofia Jannok and the adventurer Berta Tilmantaitė have in common? Well, they are a few of several well-known people in culture, politics and science who participate in discussions about sustainability, environment and culture during this year's Baltic Sea Festival.

An innovative, international Baltic Sea Festival starts the season in Swedish Radio’s concert hall, Berwaldhallen. The 2019/2020 season of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir continues, with musical story-telling as the theme. The year of Berwaldhallen’s 40th birthday is celebrated with a number of concerts, the pinnacle being a gala concert in November. The season ends with a proper dose of Beethoven – who turns 250 this year – with Missa Solemnis and the mighty Symphony No. 9 under Daniel Harding's leadership. World-famous cellist Truls Mørk is the season’s Artist-in-residence.

STOCKHOLM / SWEDEN (April 24, 2019) ––– This year’s Baltic Sea Festival takes a leap across the sea and brings the Baltic countries together in a completely new way. The programme spans seven festival days of first-class music and seven conversations, where some of the most interesting personalities from our region come together to talk about music and sustainability. The conversations, which will take place in front of audiences in cities around the Baltic Sea, will be an integral part of the festival and will be broadcast live in the host cities as well as at Berwaldhallen. Just as in previous years, the Baltic Sea Festival offers a series of glittering musical gems.

Following an international recruitment process for the newly created position as Chorus master, the job has been offered to Marc Korovitch from France. The Swedish Radio Choir has a long history and is an important part of what is known as “the Swedish Choral Miracle”. Under their Chief Conductor, Eric Ericson, the choir rapidly grew over a 30-year period into a seminal institution in international choral music. The choir is still sought after by a large number of conductors and concert halls.