From playful orchestrations to romantic concertos, the 2025 season at Tapiola Sinfonietta promises an unparalleled auditory journey for music enthusiasts. Featuring exceptional talents like Iiro Rantala and Angela Hewitt, this series of concerts showcases the versatility and richness of classical music. Delve into events like 'Joy of Life' and 'Heartbeat' that blend humor with romance, and experience world premieres alongside timeless classics. With a lineup that spans from Beethoven's wit to Berlioz's dramatic visions, each concert offers a unique glimpse into the art of musical storytelling.

Exploring Musical Mastery: A Journey Through Tapiola Sinfonietta's 2025 Season

Embark on a musical journey with Tapiola Sinfonietta as it unveils a dynamic lineup for its autumn season at the Espoo Cultural Centre. From the romantic overtures of Elina Vähälä to the enchanting recitals of Angela Hewitt, the season promises an eclectic mix of creativity and mastery. Audiences will witness world premieres, historic retrospectives, and innovative interpretations, each promising to captivate and inspire. Whether you're an aficionado of classical masterpieces or contemporary compositions, this season beckons with its rich tapestry of sound and storytelling.

A Symphony of Seasons: Exploring Tapiola Sinfonietta's Autumn Performances

Jazz was condemned by the art music audience in the early 20th century, but that did not stop composers from being inspired by jazz rhythms and sounds.

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Bad influences

Espoo Cultural Centre

In March 1913, Arnold Schönberg conducted a musical program at the Vienna Musikverein, which was later called the “scandal concert.” The program included his Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9, a wall-breaker in the prevailing musical order. In addition, Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlied and Alban Berg’s songs to poems written on landscape postcards by the Bohemian poet Peter Altenberg were heard. A general uproar broke out during the Altenberg songs, and supporters and opponents of the modernists clashed.

Scandal concert

“At the end of the concert, half the audience clapped their hands, the other half hissed in disapproval. There were even those who hissed and clapped at the same time.”

A soldier's story

Irina Zahharenkova’s period as artist-in-residence at Tapiola Sinfonietta and interpreter of Beethoven’s piano concertos ends majestically with the “Emperor Concerto”. Beethoven famously did not care for emperors and received the additional title of the fifth and final piano concerto from the publisher. The title is not misleading, however, as it reminds us of the composer’s competence as a master of musical linear tactics. The “Sixth” piano concerto is Beethoven’s own arrangement of an earlier violin concerto. The cadenzas composed for it and everything that Beethoven invented for the left hand make the work interesting. Zahharenkova has built a personal and inspired whole from the piano concertos. 

Irina & Beethoven – Finale

It is rare to witness a public execution and the subsequent “dream of a severed head” in a concert, but Hector Berlioz’s Symphony No. 1 does. Of course, it is all fantasy, but reality was more wonderful than fiction. In the symphony, Berlioz murders his love, the English actress Harriet Smithson, but years later married her. Michael Drapkin has reduced the orchestra in his arrangement, but not much emotion. Canadian-Finnish composer Matthew Whittall’s new oboe concerto is tailored for the brilliant oboe principal of the Tapiola Sinfonietta, Anni Haapaniemi. Whittall was inspired by the contrast between light and shadow in his composition, which also served as the starting point for the visual design of the concert.

Hallucination

Michael Collins, one of the world's leading clarinet artists, will bring a world premiere performance by Sally Beamish.

ISAAC

Future stars studying in the Sibelius Academy's conducting class will lead the Tapiola Sinfonietta in an After Work Special concert. After the concert, the first Piano Classics sequels of the season will take place in Tapiola Hall.

After Work Special: Kapu class

Music sometimes contains composers' secrets that are not meant for everyone to hear. Shostakovich performs his first cello concerto with his D-Es-CH theme formed from his initials, but in the finale, Stalin begins to taunt him with his favorite tune. Schubert left his B minor symphony unfinished, even though he tried for a long time to come up with a sequel to it. Recent research reveals that the work may have been intentionally "Unfinished". The text written by Schubert around the same time tells of a difficult family crisis, the painful memories of which are reflected in two movements of the symphony. In the Cortége by Sibelius Prize-winning Sir Harrison Birtwistle, the musicians perform a mysterious ritual in front of the audience.

Sleep or Trauma

Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt is known for her interpretations of Bach, and Bach is also available in PianoEspoo's extensive selection. Bach's Piano Concerto in G minor may sound familiar, as it is the composer's arrangement of his Violin Concerto in A minor. In 1784, Mozart did not hesitate to advertise his quintet for piano and wind instruments to his father: "The best work I have composed so far". Many could argue that the C major concerto, completed the following year with its charming slow movements, surpasses even that.

PianoEspoo: Angela Hewitt

The Tapiola Sinfonietta's autumn season opens on a romantic note. Elina Vähälä, one of our country's most internationally successful instrumental soloists, interprets Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1, the immense popularity of which the composer tried in vain to achieve in his later concerts. Andrew Manze became known as one of the most respected baroque violinists of our time before taking up the baton with a completely different repertoire.

Heartbeat

We live in the most pleasant time in history, and yet we still don't know how to enjoy ourselves. Have we forgotten the art of rejoicing? This is what Iiro Rantala asks in his double concerto Joy of Life, which is full of virtuosity and witty banter for orchestra, violin and piano. Even the old rascal Beethoven shows a childish sense of playfulness; the Eighth Symphony's arsenal of pranks includes at least self-irony, parody and exaggeration, performed with a serious face, of course.

Joy of Life

Naantali Church

The year 2025 marks   the 90th birthday  of the renowned Estonian composer Arvo Pärt . The inaugural concert of Organ Night & Aria, celebrating Pärt, will present his masterful choral and orchestral works. The unique musical style tintinnabuli  (bell-twilight) developed by Pärt in 1976 opened up new vistas for contemporary music. 

Arvo Pärt 90 years: Masterpieces at the Helsinki Music Centre

Musiikkitalo

The festival's closing concert is dominated by beautiful music from our own contemporary era. Works have been selected with the idea of ​​beauty in mind, without regard to the potential breaking of familiar genre boundaries.

Chamber music in Dipoli – Pretty nerds

Aalto University

This year, the Tapiola Sinfonietta Spring Chamber Music Festival will be held in Dipoli, Otaniemi. In three different concerts, listeners will be treated to a diverse and out-of-the-box musical experience. This year, the festival program has been designed by Tapiola Sinfonietta horn player Ilkka Hongisto and violinist Kanerva Mannermaa. The theme of the program is beauty, and each concert embodies the theme in its own way.

Chamber music in Dipoli – Wood Works

Chamber music in Dipoli – Singing without words

Tapiola Sinfonietta's new artistic partner Nicolas Altstaedt and long-time collaborator Ryan Bancroft will meet for the first time in a concert. Altstaedt is the soloist in William Walton's melodic and virtuoso cello concerto, which was completed in 1957 for cello legend Grigori Pyatigorsk. Sofia Gubaidulina died in the spring of 2025 at the age of 94. Her musical fairy tale Poema-Skazka, composed in 1971, tells the story of a chalk that wants to draw castles and gardens, but is condemned to scratch boring words and numbers on a school blackboard.

Meeting

The unique and startling architectural art has been called wow architecture, and the word is a good way to describe the music of the Frenchman Guillaume Connesson. Connesson's Flute Concerto No. 2 is subtitled Danses concertantes, "Concert Dances", which ecstatically push through the boundaries of style and genre. Tapiola Sinfonietta is one of the commissioners of this exciting new work, and the soloist will be Emily Beynon, principal flutist of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Emily in France

Tapiola Sinfonietta's artistic partner Nicolas Altstaedt once again performed as both cellist and conductor. Mozart offered Tchaikovsky an image of a time of happiness and a world of beauty, which he sought in his Rococo Variations for cello and orchestra. The version of the Variations that spread around the world was tampered with by cello soloist Fitzenhagen, but Altstaedt offers an opportunity to hear the work in the form the composer intended. Wilhelm Killmayer (1927-2017), who was active in Munich, experimented with modernism early in his career before surrendering to the tonal joy of life, La joie de vivre. This is also reflected in the Transylvanian folk dances that follow in the footsteps of Veressin Bartok with a lighter step. Haydn's energetic Symphony No. 70 shed optimism on the Esterházy princely court after a devastating fire.

Mahler's Fifth Symphony is especially remembered for its wonderful Adagietto for strings and harp, which has been heard in Visconti's film Death in Venice, at President Kennedy's funeral and at the commemorations of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. For Mahler, the piece was a declaration of love for his new wife Alma, but in the great symphony it is a small respite on the way from the mourning march and storms of the beginning to the optimistic rush of the finale.

Love song

Conducted by conducting partner Ryan Bancroft, the symphonic full-length is on the verge of fundamental questions. Sibelius and Brahms are at their most serious, but also their most courageous, in their fourth symphonies. Brahms builds his last symphony on the foundation of Baroque variation, but looks over it towards timelessness. 

Neloset

Violinist-director Jan Söderblom and actress Miitta Sorvali explore the possibilities and dimensions of laughter in a classical music concert.

Laughter Festival

The majority of Mozart's output is in the major key, but a few minor works contain all the notes of human disappointment, sadness, and comfort.

Mozart in Minor Key

Peter Whelan, matured in the broth of period style, leads one of the greatest Baroque challenges, supported by the professional singers of the Helsinki Chamber Choir.

 Easter Concert: JS Bach's Mass in B minor

The 2025-2026 Indie Series will culminate in the premiere of the Electric Guitar Concerto by the orchestra's artistic partner Marzi Nyman.

Electricity!

Maria Wloszczowska, concertmaster of the European Chamber Orchestra, makes her Tapiola debut.

Neo-classics

Clarinetist Lauri Sallinen is known for breaking down barriers between the arts. The concert, conducted by Izabele Jankauzkaiten, will feature no fewer than six works, including Lotta Wennäkoski's Ele.

Tapiola Sinffonietta

Dec 11, 2025

Meeting

Jan 15, 2026

Emily in France

Jan 29, 2026

Joy of Life

Feb 12, 2026

Love song

Feb 26, 2026

Neloset

Nov 27, 2025

Bad influences

Nov 20, 2025

Scandal concert

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Tapiola Sinffonietta