Name: Haydn’s farewell symphony
Start: 2027-05-29T18:00:00
Location: Berwaldhallen

Malin Broman

Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

The Baltic Sea Festival 2026 opens with an evening pulsing with premieres and rhythm! Andres Orozco-Estrada takes the podium at Berwaldhallen for the very first time as Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra – a long-awaited debut that sets the tone for the festival. Anders Hillborg’s powerful Mahler tribute Hell Mountain receives its Swedish premiere, and Molly Kien’s brand-new work – composed exclusively for the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir – will have its world premiere.

Rythm and ritual

Berwaldhallen

Alfie sits in the apartment where he lives, feeling lonely. He has moved to a new place and doesn’t know any of the other children there. Sometimes his imaginary friend Malcolm appears. When they play together, Alfie always gets to decide – like being the train driver when they play trains. But Malcolm never shows up when he is needed, like when the “big boys” chase Alfie and spray his jacket with water pistols. A performance about friendship, based on Alfie Atkins, the beloved children’s book character created by Gunilla Bergström.

Who will save Alfie Atkins?

The third day of the Baltic Sea Festival opens with a vibrant musical gathering as musicians from the Czech Philharmonic and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra meet in the Queen Silvia Concert Hall. Together they highlight two chamber music masterpieces from their respective homelands: Antonín Dvořák’s warmly lyrical and irresistibly melodic Serenade for Strings — deeply rooted in Czech folklore — and Franz Berwald’s charmingly idiosyncratic Grand Septuor, a work that carries traces of Swedish musical identity in its most inventive form. A meeting of traditions, sound worlds, and musical roots.

Berwald’s septet and Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings

Queen Silvia Concert Hall

The Baltic Sea Festival’s grand finale invites you to an evening of drama and rich sonorities. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra together with soprano Aphrodite Patoulidou, baritone Peter Mattei, and saxophonist Asya Fateyeva. The program opens with Erkki-Sven Tüür’s new saxophone concerto – a work that looks toward the future – before Sibelius’s monumental Kullervo draws us deep into the mythic world of the Finnish epic. A closing night where contemporary sound meets Nordic legend in a powerful musical encounter.

Fate & guilt

The opening of the 2026/2027 season takes you on a musical journey across stormy seas, through sparkling nightscapes and symphonic dances with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev, and the legendary soprano Nina Stemme. Here, the musical sea interpretations of British composers Ethel Smyth, Benjamin Britten and Edward Elgar meet with the Russian sonorous and dancing energy of Sergei Rachmaninov. A concert where natural forces, emotional storms and symphonic brilliance meet.

Sea Music and Symphonic Dances

Step into a world of dark tales, mystery and dancing rhythms as the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and viola soloist, also this season's P2 Classical Artist, Ami-Louise Johnsson are led by Taiwanese conductor Yi-Chen Lin. The music moves between deep lyricism and narrative drama – from Bohuslav Martinů's poignant Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola, where the solo part glows with feelings, to Antonín Dvořák's evocative The Noon Witch , a musical tale with both humor and horror. Finally, Zoltán Kodály's Dances of Galánta lift the Swedish Radio concert hall with its exuberance of energy, virtuosity and folk charm.

Dark tales and dances

Join Niklas and Radioapan on a fast-paced journey through time! Together with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jonas Nydesjö, they set out in search of the most monkey-tastic music of all time – meeting dinosaurs, crocodiles in cars and Baby Mozart along the way. A playful musical adventure filled with laughter, singing and surprises!

Niklas & Radioapan – The Magical Time Machine

When three of the most distinctive musical voices of our time – conductor and composer George Benjamin, pianist Bertrand Chamayou and soprano Barbara Hannigan – come together, a program full of intensity, imagination and refined drama emerges. Maurice Ravel opens the evening with rhythmic brilliance and Spanish glow in Alborada del Gracioso, before Jean Sibelius and his enigmatic Luonnotar lead us into a world of myth and creation. Unsuk Chin’s piano concerto follows with explosive energy and sparkling colours, and after the intermission we immerse ourselves in Benjamin’s own Lessons in Love and Violence – music that unites clarity and passion. Finally, we return to Ravel with Rapsodie espagnole, where the lessons of love conclude in dance, heat and seductive shadows.

Lessons in love

A concert filled with brilliant virtuosity and symphonic splendor awaits as Emilia Hoving leads the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in a program that ranges from raw folk pulse to orchestral grandeur. Béla Bartók’s Dance Suite opens with its colourful cityscapes and rhythms from Central Europe, before trumpet master Håkan Hardenberger takes the stage in Karen Tanaka’s newly written Trumpet Concerto – a work filled with sparkling technical power. After the intermission, the evening culminates in Camille Saint-Saëns’ monumental Organ Symphony , where orchestra and organ together build a sound cathedral of majestic energy.

Hardenberger in Tanaka’s trumpet concerto

Love of my life – Nils Landgren & friends

Marta Gardolińska leads the Swedish world-renowned cellist Jakob Koranyi and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Camille Saint-Saëns' beloved first cello concerto – a work that combines virtuoso elegance and dramatic heat. This is followed by Grazyna Bacewicz's colorful and powerful Musica sinfonica in tre movimenti , full of drive, sharpness and modern brilliance. The finale is a pure dance party, when Antonín Dvořák's Slavonic Dances fill Berwaldhallen with vitality and infectious energy.

From cello glow to Slavonic dances

When Thomas Adès conducts the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, a concert awaits where the large-scale visions of romanticism meet the glow of modernism and Dante's dramatic underworld. Franz Liszt's Les Préludes opens with philosophical images of the origin of the world, before Tomo Keller and Sascha Bota take the stage in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's brilliant Sinfonia concertante, one of the most beloved works for violin and viola. After the intermission, the atmosphere deepens in the 100th anniversary jubilee György Kurtág's concentrated and charged Movement for Viola and Orchestra , before Adès himself leads us into his own musical interpretation of Inferno – a suite that vibrates with sharp contours, humour, heat and brilliant imagination.