07:00 pm
Johannes Gustavsson Conductor
Liza Ferschtman Violin
Therese Birkelund Ulvo Composer
THERESE BIRKELUND ULVO · “Friction Forward” (2025, German Premiere)
ALBAN BERG · Concerto for Violin and Orchestra “To the Memory of an Angel” (1935)
GUSTAV MAHLER · Symphony No. 1 in D-major (1885-88)
Youth Orchestras from the High North are relatively rare guests at Young Euro Classic. One positive exception is the Norwegian Youth Orchestra, the Ungdomssymfonikerne, who have demonstrated the high level of Norwegian music education here over and over. Once again, the young Norwegians tackle great symphonic challenges: the expressive violin concerto by Alban Berg, To the Memory of an Angel hides its twelve-tone technique under a suggestive tonal idiom, the violin giving moving expression to feelings of grief and consolation. After the interval, Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony is a work ranging from folk-song-like tunes to violent emotional outbursts. To begin with, the Ungdomssymfonikerne have commissioned a new work from their compatriot Therese Birkelund Ulvo – after its world premiere at the Elverum Festival, it will have its German premiere in Berlin.
At the premiere of Young Euro Classic in the millennial year of 2000, the young Norwegian musicians of the Ungdomssymfonikerne already performed at the Konzerthaus, and they have returned regularly ever since to win the hearts of Berlin audiences with their Scandinavian programmes, most recently in 2018 and 2023. Works by living composers are an important part of their concerts. The National Norwegian Youth Orchestra was founded in 1973 to give talented young musicians aged 18 to 28 from Norway and other Nordic music academies the opportunity to gather first experiences with professional working conditions. The annual summer working phase lasts three to four weeks and takes place in Elverum in Southern Norway. Outstanding Norwegian artists, such as the pianists Leif Ove Andsnes and Håvard Gimse, the cellist Truls Mørk and the trumpet player Ole Edvard Antonsen have been the prominent soloists at the final concerts in Norway and other European countries.
The 49-year-old Swedish conductor Johannes Gustavsson began his musical career as a violist before choosing conducting as his main focus. Winning the Sir Georg Solti Competition in Frankfurt and the Toscanini Competition in Parma paved the way, as did the Swedish Conductor’s Prize and the Herbert Blomstedt Award. Ever since, Gustavsson has conducted all the major orchestras in Scandinavia, including the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Philharmonic Orchestras in Helsinki and Turku. He has worked with such prominent soloists as Janine Jansen, Martin Fröst, Nina Stemme, Vikingur Olafsson, Olli Mustonen and Isabelle van Keulen. Gustavsson has led world premieres of more than 50 orchestral works by Nordic composers; he also recorded many of these compositions for CD, e.g. works by Anders Eliasson, CFE Horneman, Tobias Broström, Britta Byström and Einar Englung.
As a musical storyteller committed to the emotional language of every composer she interprets, Liza Ferschtman’s ever-widening path in her international career is as varied as the work she performs. Her great affinity for Schubert and Beethoven stands right alongside a passion for the expressionistic world of the early 20th-century composers, and her extensive discography lays further claim to that versatility, with music written from 1676 to 2014.
As a concerto soloist, she performs with leading orchestras worldwide, such as the BBC Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, the Helsinki Philharmonic, and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, with conductors including Ivan Fischer, Antonello Manacorda, John Storgards, Juraj Valcuha and Stephane Denève. Also in demand as a director-soloist, she works with orchestras like Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Lapland Chamber Orchestra, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, and ORCAM Madrid.
Ms. Ferschtman‘s creativity as an artistic director, curator, and collaborator has taken flight in a large, dynamic range of international projects. At the young age of 27, she was named artistic director of the Delft Chamber Music Festival, and during her 14 years of tenure, she expanded the festival into a multiarts annual event that took a unique place in the Dutch cultural landscape. Next to her busy life on stage, she is now much in demand as a teacher.
In 2006, Ms. Ferschtman received the Dutch Music Prize, the highest governmental award for young musicians. In 2021, she was made Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau, a royal acknowledgment for her contribution to the Dutch cultural scene.
The 43-year-old Norwegian composer Therese Birkelund Ulvo studied at the Norwegian Music Academy in Oslo before moving on to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. In her compositions, a close connection with traditional Norwegian folk music is apparent, offering a broad spectrum from microtonality and open forms to interpretational freedom beyond the notated text. Ulvo’s music also builds a bridge between acustic and electronic music, with friction and noises produced by the instruments taking a prominent position. In 2013, she composed the incidental music for the play Heilage Sunniva, which was performed at the International Bergen Festival; in 2014, her orchestral work Shadows and Shields was another work for the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2016, her violin concerto Postponed Action was given its world premiere by Eira Foss. The Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra commissioned the installation 13 ways to tame a beast (2018) and the orchestral composition In the Cage (2019).