Last night I attended the 10-year anniversary concert of La Tempesta chamber orchestra. I had the good fortune to conduct them twice last year, but this time I could just relax and enjoy the performance from the hall. This orchestra is the brainchild of violinist Janne Tateno, with whom I studied at the same time in the Helsinki Conservatory, and the orchestra still consists mainly of ex-students of the conservatory! It is incredible how still after 10 years the players come from different corners of Finland to form a string orchestra and make music together!
La Tempesta is the resident orchestra of the Oulunsalo Soi music festival in Northern Finland, which ended just a week ago. Two weeks of rehearsing and performing together at the festival had left their mark on the playing of the orchestra - the sound was really homogenous and beautiful! Japanese maestra Yuri Nitta had the honour of conducting the anniversary concert, which she did in very professional but in my opinion way too serious and modest manner. Or maybe the gloominess of the Helsinki Conservatory concert hall played tricks on me...
The first half consisted of Rakastava Suite by Sibelius and a Piano Concerto for Left Hand by Pehr Henrik Nordgren. The soloist was Izumi Tateno, a much loved pianist both in Finland and Japan. After the break we heard the Voces Intimae quartet by Jean Sibelius, arranged for string orchestra by Pekka Helasvuo (I always thought that this piece would sound better as an orchestral piece than a quartet - and it indeed did)! The concert ended with beautiful performance of Edvard Grieg's Holberg Suite. Afterwards we had a nice banquet at Knossos restaurant with loads of great Greek food!
Once more, my congratulations to La Tempesta! May the next ten years be even more successful than the previous!