News
26.9.2021
Tickets for New Year’s concerts now available
Joseph Haydn’s opera L’isola disabitata (The Desert Island) will be performed in Helsinki Baroque Orchestra’s traditional New Year’s concert in Musiikkitalo on Dec 31 & Jan 1. The soloists include Giuseppina Bridelli, Kajsa Dahlbäck, Hugo Hymas and Arttu Kataja, with Aapo Häkkinen conducting.
Tickets are now available from Ticketmaster service points and website.
1.9.2021
Aapo Häkkinen’s recital re-scheduled
The opening concert of the Early Music Series in Musiikkitalo has been re-scheduled. The new date for Aapo Häkkinen’s Bach, Haydn, Hässler recital is Saturday, September 25 at 19:00.
All tickets purchased for the original concert are valid on the new date and no action is required. In case you wish to cancel your ticket, follow the instructions set out by Ticketmaster. Season ticket holders may receive a refund for the corresponding amount.
5.7.2021
Helsinki Baroque Orchestra is performing internationally again
Concert activity is edging towards normal. After playing the Janakkala Baroque Festival successfully with a live audience, the orchestra will be heading to Hungary next to perform at the Vác Days of Early Music, followed by Póvoa de Varzim Music Festival in Portugal.
24.6.2021
Janakkala Baroque is happening!
After last summer’s covid break, the Janakkala Baroque Festival will happen again from July 3-4 this year. The programme includes some of last year’s cancellations.
“After a long break the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra will once again play in front of a live audience. We are overjoyed to be able to do it in Janakkala, a traditional highlight of our summer”, notes Aapo Häkkinen, the artistic director of the orchestra and the festival.
The festival programme comprises an organ recital by Benjamin Alard, folk music al fresco (weather permitting) with Eva Alkula, a children’s baroque event, and a concert of the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra with Aapo Häkkinen and Benjamin Alard as soloists.
26.8.2020
New Bach CD is out!
Completion of an internationally acclaimed series: Aapo Häkkinen and the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra conclude the cycle of Bach’s harpsichord concertos with the concertos for 3 and 4 harpsichords.
Here, too, Häkkinen surprises in terms of instrumentation: The harpsichords represent different schools of instrument building (German, Flemish, French and Italian), resulting in a remarkably differentiated sound. With Miklós Spányi, Cristiano Holtz, and Anna-Maaria Oramo, Häkkinen is supported by experienced companions.
This keyboard festival is rounded off with the monumental Duetto by the eccentric Bach pupil Johann Gottfried Müthel, presented by specialists Miklós Spányi and Aapo Häkkinen on two historical clavichords. The SuperAudioCD, recorded in Finland and Sweden, offers stereo and surround sound.
23.4.2020
New dates for Third Practice
The Helsinki season of Third Practice has been re-scheduled and will take place from March 2-6, 2021. Tickets will be available at the Finnish National Opera and Ballet box office from August 7, 2020.
8.8.2019
New Beethoven CD is out!
Helsinki Baroque Orchestra’s traditional New Year’s concert has just been released as a live recording by Ondine. This album with HeBO playing on period instruments under the direction of Aapo Häkkinen includes Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770-1827) complete incidental music to Goethe’s Egmont. This complete music includes parts sung by soprano Elisabeth Breuer as well as spoken texts narrated by Robert Hunger-Bühler.
Beethoven started to write the incidental music to Goethe’s Egmont in the autumn of 1809. The recent experience of Napoleon’s siege of Vienna, the Spanish uprising against the French, and the ubiquitous awareness of the hand of the oppressor inspired him to write music in which the drama develops into the musical vision of the Wars of Liberation. It was a commission from the management of the Imperial Court Theatre in Vienna, which in October 1809, oppressed by Napoleon on all sides, had turned again to Egmont, with a view to putting on a new production. Beethoven was tasked with providing the essential and indispensable music, which was however played only from the fourth performance of the new production in June 1810. Beethoven had recently become an ardent reader and admirer of Goethe. He had set Mignon’s song Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt four times in 1808 alone, and this had started an intense preoccupation with songs to Goethe texts. In a letter to Bettina von Arnim in February 1811 Beethoven writes: “My most sincere admiration … for Goethe … I am about to write to him myself about Egmont, for which I have written the music, which I did out of sheer love for his poetry …”. What distinguishes Beethoven’s Egmont are great dramatic emotion of style, tightly unified musical ideas, and an absolute determination to create a sense of the triumph of freedom as the Utopian dream of the whole of mankind. The overture, the only one of the ten numbers to be heard regularly today in the concert-hall, draws all these intentions together in concentrated form. Its meaning is revealed only in context, together with the interludes and the final musical episodes.
5.12.2018
Third Practice Draws from Monteverdi’s Radical Heritage
Tero Saarinen Company and Helsinki Baroque Orchestra join forces to find new dimensions to opera pioneer Claudio Monteverdi’s (1567-1643) radical madrigals. Flagships of their respective genres in Finland and leading forces of the European dance and baroque music scenes, the two companies unite to create an emotionally gripping contemporary fusion of dance, live music, opera, design and technology. Performers include twelve TSC dancers and HeBO musicians plus internationally recognized opera soloists tenor Topi Lehtipuu, on stage, and the virtual avatar of soprano Núria Rial.
TSC and HeBO will rehearse and do technical experiments related to the virtual character at the Finnish National Theatre’s Main Stage on 17-18 May. Audiences in Helsinki have an opportunity to observe the process: tickets for the open rehearsals go on sale on Tuesday, 4 December. The world premiere of Third Practice will take place in Italy at the end of May 2019 as an international co-production. The Finnish premiere will be at Kuopio Dance Festival on 17-18 June. Tickets for Kuopio go on sale on 2 January.
20.11.2018
Diapason d’Or de l’Année for Helsinki Baroque Orchestra
A Diapason d’Or de l’Année (category Baroque instrumental) was awarded to Helsinki Baroque Orchestra’s complete recording of Bach’s concertos for two harpsichords for the German record label AEOLUS. The soloists Aapo Häkkinen and Pierre Hantaï also performed in the award ceremony, broadcast live on Radio France.
The concert is available online from France Musique:
www.francemusique.fr/emissions/le-concert-du-soir/soiree-des-diapasons-d-or-2018-66633
The Diapason d’Or de l’Année is decided by a jury comprising critics from Diapason and broadcasters from France Musique, and is one of the most prestigious awards in classical music.
www.francemusique.fr/actualite-musicale/palmares-des-diapason-d-or-2018-67261
24.8.2018
Márta Schmidt appointed HeBO’s general manager
The board of Helsinki Baroque Orchestra has appointed Márta Schmidt as general manager. Schmidt moves over from her post as general manager of Sata-Häme Soi festival on September 1.
Schmidt’s broad track record in music management includes Kuhmo Chamber Music festival, Helsinki Early Music Week and BRQ Vantaa festival. Her wide experience is particularly focused on early music. She was previously secretary general of Nordem (Nordic early music network), and from 2015-2018 a member of the board of directors in REMA. From 2017 Schmidt has served as a board member of Finland Festivals.
Originally trained as a teacher of history and music, Schmidt holds a master’s degree in musicology. Her management training includes attending the Executive Program in Arts & Culture Strategy at the University of Pennsylvania.
Schmidt was born in Hungary and has lived in Finland since 1986.
In Helsinki Baroque Orchestra Schmidt will be responsible for financial management and further developing the orchestra in close cooperation with the artistic director.