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SEQUENZA21/
340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019

Zookeeper:   
Jerry Bowles
(212) 582-3791

Managing Editor:
David Salvage

Contributing Editors:

Galen H. Brown
Evan Johnson
Ian Moss
Lanier Sammons
Deborah Kravetz
(Philadelphia)
Eric C. Reda
(Chicago)
Christian Hertzog
(San Diego)
Jerry Zinser
(Los Angeles)

Web & Wiki Master:
Jeff Harrington


Latest Posts

What's New in Sequenza21 Today?
10 Questions About Morton Feldman
What's New in Sequenza21 Today?
Made in America Festival Set for Seattle
Wanted: A Few Good Bloggers
Adamo's Little Women Heads for Japan
Turnage Goes Scherzoid in New York
Miller Theater's Excellent Road Show
Another Shape (perhaps) of Things to Come
In Search of Philistines


 

Record companies, artists and publicists are invited to submit CDs to be considered for review. Send to: Jerry Bowles, Editor, Sequenza 21, 340 W. 57th Street, 12B, New York, NY 10019


Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Minnesota Orchestra Launches �Finnish Fanfare�

The Minnesota Orchestra will begin the New Year tomorrow with a �Finnish Fanfare,� the first of two programs showcasing music and musicians of Finland. In concerts January 13-15, Music Director Osmo V�nsk� welcomes fellow countryman and composer Kalevi Aho to Minneapolis for first Minnesota Orchestra performances of Aho�s Symphony No. 7, Insect Symphony. A strong advocate of his countryman�s music, V�nsk� is currently in the process of recording Aho�s complete symphonic works with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra for the Swedish BIS label.

 height=Born in 1949, Aho has established himself as one of the most important Finnish composers of his generation. He completed his opera Insect Life in 1987 and reworked the orchestral score into his Seventh Symphony. The work�s six movements contrast greatly with each other, as butterflies, ants, dayflies and additional creatures are represented by music including the foxtrot, tango, military march and lullaby.

Aho wrote his own libretto for the opera, basing it on the play Insect Life by two remarkable Czech brothers, Josef and Karel Capek. Josef was a painter and cartoonist, Karel a journalist and stage manager. Together, they collaborated on several plays satiric of modern society and particularly of the condition of the worker in an increasingly automated society. These include Insect Life, written in 1922 and quickly produced in London and New York, and R.U.R. (Rossum�s Universal Robots), which introduced the term �robot.� In 1923 Karel wrote another play, The Makropulos Secret, which became the basis of Jan�cek�s opera The Makropulos Affair. Two decades later, Josef�s cartoons so antagonized the Nazis that he was sent to the concentration camp at Belsen, where he died in 1945.

Emotive content and eloquence are essential properties of music to Aho: �For me music, at least great music, is a manifestation of emotions and the soul. In music, I hear the speech of one human being to another; I hear his joy, sorrow, happiness, desperation. In a composition as a whole, I hear his attitude to life, his philosophy, his world view�his message.�

 



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