Pekka Kuusisto in Sibelius' Violin Concerto

First guest conductor Pekka Kuusisto performs his countryman Sibelius' Violin Concerto - a work he has played throughout his career. Tonight he conducts the orchestra himself, violin in hand.

Jean Sibelius was himself an accomplished violinist but never achieved success as a virtuoso. The Violin Concerto in D minor (1905) can be seen as a tribute to the instrument, marked by intense expression and Nordic melancholy. As Kuusisto himself puts it: "There is reason to see the concerto not as a heroic saga, but rather as something channelled from the earth, or from our ancestors - as a kind of shamanic event."

The evening opens with Andrea Tarrodi's Paradise Birds and concludes with Kuusisto exchanging his violin for the conductor's baton to lead the Symfoniker in Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. The programme is also performed on the Symfoniker's tour to Amsterdam and Dublin.

About an hour before the concert, an introduction is held in the Great Hall - approximately 30 minutes, free seating and included in the ticket price.