Listen to Esa-Pekka and Daniel Harding Live, from Stockholm

The inaugural concert of the 7th annual Baltic Sea Festival arrives shortly, today at 7:30pm to be exact, local Stockholm time. The festival is the collaboration of Esa-Pekka Salonen, Valery Gergiev and Michael Tydén to ensure protection for the Baltic region (mainly with an environmental thrust to protect the fragile seabeds and yummy little fishes). Held in Stockholm, it's one of Northern Europe's best festivals.

It will open with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and their former principal conductor (and the festival's artistic director), Esa-Pekka Salonen. He'll be leading the orchestra in the European premiere of his Violin Concerto, and Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex (with the kick-a$$ mezzo, Ekaterina Gubanova, singing Iokaste).

The festival closes on September 3rd with Musical Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Harding, conducting his corps in Verdi's Requiem.

So what's this got to do with the important business man who's too busy doing his important business man things? You can listen to it free & live via the Baltic Sea Festival Radio!

We'll gladly take the Salonen & Harding concerts, but we're kind of disappointed that Tony Iivonen, "the Harry Potter of accordions", won't be part of the broadcasts. Looks like he's disappointed, too :-(

Comments

[Guido]

By Salonen, from the program notes about the violin concerto:

"Leila Josefowicz turned out to be a fantastic partner in this process. She knows no limits, she knows no fear, and she was constantly encouraging me to go to places I was not sure I would dare to go. As a result of that process, this Concerto is as much a portrait of her as it is my more private narrative, a kind of summary of my experiences as a musician and a human being at the watershed age of 50."

Is Salonen writing about Josefowicz as a violonist or as a partner in a romantic tryst? Hard to tell.

[Tricia]

The violin concerto was beautiful. For about a minute there I heard the virtuosity that Rostropovich displays in the cello suites that Benjamin Britten wrote for him. Bravo and Brava

[Crew Mantle]

Alright... this is about hair.

I mean what good can come of Mr Iivonen's HIGH hair? He gives Texas women a run for the money for gods sake; no easy feet... particularly in the panhandle.

You know there is always a day where one will look back at such pictures. This I tell you is a moment to be reckoned with for this unfortunate young man; the day I had hair higher then There's Something about Mary..'

[Dr. Faust]

Why is that accordion player the Harry Potter of accordions? That kid looks miserable!