Alan Gilbert Leads Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Special Livestreamed Concert Today
Live orchestral concerts are just one of the many casualties of our current health crisis. To help redress this balance, Grammy Award-winning conductor Alan Gilbert joins the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra today for a one-of-a-kind livestreamed event. In accordance with the Swedish government’s latest directives, which permit gatherings of up to 500 people, he and the orchestra will perform in the hexagonal Berwaldhallen, one of Stockholm’s two foremost concert halls, with no audience present. Featuring their accounts of Brahms’s First Symphony and Stravinsky’s Histoire du soldat, with narration by Stina Ekblad, the Finnish-Swedish actress best known for her star turn in Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, the concert will stream live to home audiences around the world today (Friday, March 27), at 2pm EDT (7pm CET).
Describing the atmosphere in their rehearsals for the Brahms Symphony as incredibly poignant, Gilbert says:
“I was so happy to be working again so soon with the orchestra, though the circumstances were like nothing we could have imagined. All of us felt so privileged to be making music at all, and the incredible power of Brahms’s music moved everyone there.”
Now in his inaugural season as Chief Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Gilbert was at home with his family in Stockholm when he received the invitation to conduct the coming concert, which marks his first return to the Swedish Radio Symphony since their collaboration on Bach’s St. Matthew Passion last summer. His leadership of Stravinsky’s music has been called “white-hot” by the New York Times, and in his opening-night concert with the NDR, their interpretation of Brahms’s First Symphony drew a five-star review from Classical Source, which found it “glorious.” The symphony and Histoire du soldat will share the Stockholm program with Britten’s A.M.D.G. (Ad majorem Dei gloriam), as performed by the Swedish Radio Choir under Folke Aliny.
Alan Gilbert: Livestreamed concert with Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Today (Friday, March 27) at 2pm EDT (7pm CET)
Stockholm, Sweden (Berwaldhallen)
Stravinsky: Histoire du soldat (narrator: Stina Ekblad)
Brahms: Symphony No. 1
Program also includes Britten’s A.M.D.G. (Ad majorem Dei gloriam), performed by the Swedish Radio Choir under Folke Aliny
The concert will stream live at Berwaldhallen Play.
To download high-resolution photos, click here.
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© 21C Media Group, March 2020