HKO: Voices of the North

Thomas Dausgaard, conductor Otto Antikainen, violin Lasse Thoresen: Rettferdighetens sol Einar Englund: Viulukonsertto Carl Nielsen: Sinfonia nro 1 Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard loves the music of his compatriot Carl Nielsen. “Nielsen’s music has been familiar to me for as long as I can remember. My warmest memories are of my grandmother, who knew Nielsen and studied under him,” Dausgaard says. In Helsinki Dausgaard presents a Norwegian‑Finnish‑Danish program that begins with Lasse Thoresen’s melodic line moving from idyll and storm to brightness and ends with Nielsen’s ecstatic First Symphony. The soloist in Einar Englund’s sharply humorous violin concerto is Otto Antikainen, the Finnish finalist of the most recent Jean Sibelius Violin Competition.