Monday, 29.06.2009

17 h, Mikaeli, Chamber Music Hall

Petri Kumela, guitar

Compositions by
J. S. Bach
C. Ph. E. Bach
Wennäkoski
Giuliani

After 1996 and 1997 for the third time, Petri Kumela, one of Finland's most interesting and versatile guitarists, takes part in the Gergiev Festival. He is as comfortable with the works of living composers - from whom he has had several commissions- as he is with the classical repertoire.

Winner of the International Scandinavian Guitar Festival and Stafford Classical Guitar Recital Competitions, Petri Kumela has appeared outside Finland in many European countries, South America, the United States and Japan. At home in Finland he has performed at numerous festivals and in many concert series. An artist with a special commitment to contemporary music, he has premiered many works both in Finland and abroad. Among the composers who have dedicated works to him are Paavo Korpijaakko, Jan Vainio, Riikka Talvitie and Pehr Henrik Nordgren.

20 h, Mikaeli, Martti Talvela Hall

Valery Gergiev, conductor / Mariinsky Theatre Brass Ensemble and Orchestra Alexei Volodin, piano

Shostakovich: Festival Overture, arranged for Brass Ensemble)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, op. 73 ("Emperor")
Interval
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, op. 74 ("Pathétique")

Alexei Volodin - a new name to Mikkeli's and Finland's audiences, but one of Valery Gergiev's most frequent soloists during the last years. In the current season they performed together in no less than 34 concerts from Germany via the UK, Japan, Spain to the USA, playing concertos by Beethoven, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev.

Alexei Volodin was born in 1977 in St Petersburg and started taking piano lessons in his home town at the age of nine. He was only 26 years old when in 2003 he won the first prize at the Concours Géza Anda in Zürich, an award which launched his international career. Since then he has given recitals all over the world and performed as soloist with prestigious orchestras and conductor.

With Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 5, the so called "Emperor Concerto", he will play in Mikkeli one of the most popular concertos of the piano repertoire, followed by an equally well-known symphony, Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 6, which is known under the title "Pathétique". This concert, which could be called "Popular Classics", will be introduced by Shostakovich's Festival Overture, in this case not played in its usual form for a big symphony orchestra, but by the magnificent Brass Ensemble of the Mariinsky Theatre.