EUYO SPRING TOUR 2022

Major residencies in Italy and Finland, a new Peace in Europe project, concerts and outreach involving several hundred young musicians, and an array of world class artists including conductors Elim Chan, Iván Fischer and Taavi Oramo, and soloists Sol Gabetta and Kreeta-Julia Heikkilä. 

AT A GLANCE

THE RESIDENCIES 

2022 features an innovative new immersive residency in Finland - Young Europe comes to Finland - as well as the Orchestra’s now traditional spring residency at its home in Ferrara, Italy. 

FERRARA RESIDENCY 

The Ferrara residency from 14 to 30 March is hosted by EUYO partners Ferrara Musica, in the theatre named after Claudio Abbado, the Orchestra’s Founding Music Director. 95 EUYO musicians will rehearse with expert instrumental tutors under the guidance and mentorship of EUYO Rehearsal Director Peter Stark, preparing a month of events. The residency will function as a laboratory distilling and infusing the “EUYO spirit” into the 2022 Orchestra.  

FINLAND RESIDENCY

The Young Europe comes to Finland residency, from 1 to 4 April in Helsinki, will feature formal and informal concerts, side-by-side events with the Sibelius Academy and the Tempo Oulu Orchestra, a community day, a conductor’s workshop, a debate with young musicians and dancers, and a late-night music club session. In Tampere a workshop and concert will be shared with the El Sistema Finland Tampere Tempo Orchestra.  

THE PEACE IN EUROPE PROJECT

Standing with Ukraine 

As cultural ambassador for the EU, the Orchestra plays a key role in promoting peace in Europe, and in exemplifying the EU principle of Unity in Diversity, showing that the best hope for harmony in Europe is through combining youth, culture and co-operation. As part of this role, and at one of the most challenging moments for Europe in many decades, The Orchestra is launching a new PEACE IN EUROPE project with a series of concerts throughout 2022 in countries across Europe from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and the East of Europe to the North Sea, all dedicated to the cause of peace in Europe, and to highlighting the plight of victims of violence.  

The Peace in Europe project launches on 25 March in Italy in the Orchestra’s home in Ferrara, continuing during the Spring Tour 2022 with the Young Europe Comes to Finland Helsinki residency. As well as Italy and Finland, further peace concerts are planned in Austria, Germany, Greece, Netherlands and Poland. As part of this project the EUYO is currently assisting the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (YSoU) to help its members find places of sanctuary, and to enable its players to continue their work by helping raise funds, opening its Frontrunners online learning programme to YSoU members, and offering side by side performance possibilities into the future. 

THE CONCERTS 

Five symphonic concerts form the core of the Spring Tour 2022 public performances, three in the Orchestra’s home in Ferrara, on 25, 27 and 30 March followed by a return to Udine on 31 March and a concert in Helsinki as the climax of the Young Europe comes to Finland residency on 3 April.

The 25 March concert is dedicated to the memory of David Sassoli, President of the EU Parliament and EUYO Honorary President, as well as launching the EUYO Peace in Europe Project. It will be introduced by EUYO Advisory Council member Hon. Silvia Costa. The Udine concert forms part of the events supporting the successful GO! 2025 Nova Gorica · Gorizia as European Capital of Culture 2025 bid. The EUYO is delighted to support this initiative, sharing the same European values of friendship and peaceful cooperation that the two cities have placed at the heart of their ambitious project to become “the most Borderless European Capital of Culture”.

THE CONCERT PROGRAMMES are directed by conductors Elim Chan and Iván Fischer. The first begins with the Italian première of This Midnight Hour by contemporary British composer Anna Clyne, and is followed by Weinberg’s Cello Concerto with cellist Sol Gabetta, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. The second programme is composed of three concertos: Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Cantus arcticus, a highly original piece with the solo parts taken by a recording of birds in the wetlands of Liminganlahti Bay, near Oulu, in Finland. Jean Sibelius’ Violin Concerto with Finnish violinist Kreeta-Julia Heikkilä and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra complete the programme.

THE CHAMBER MUSIC

CHAMBER MUSIC PROGRAMME - More than 70 pieces of chamber music will be performed in the Spring Tour 2022 by more than 60 composers, including living composers of many different origins and heritage such as Jessie Montgomery, Valerie Coleman, Roxanna Panufnik, Konstantía Gourzí, Matt Browne, Steve Reich, David Skidmore, Philip Glass, David Paich, Jeff Porcaro, Bogusław Furtok and the recently deceased Joseph Horovitz.

Other contemporary composers include notable figures such as the women's suffrage activist Dame Ethel Mary Smyth, Nikos Skalkottas, Benjamin Britten, György Ligeti, Zoltán Kodály, Béla Bartók, John Cage, Gerardo Matos Rodríguez, Astor Piazzolla, Witold Lutosławski, Michael Kamen, Gustav Holst, George Gershwin, Victor Ewald, Maurice Ravel, Malcom Arnold, Dmitri Shostakovich, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Igor Stravinsky and Erwin Schulhoff. EUYO Musicians will also perform traditional music by Unto Mononen, Veikko Ahvenainen and Usko Kemppi as well as traditional folk music.

Other significant and well-known classical composers include Giovanni Verdi, Gioachino Rossini, Giacomo Puccini, Alexander Borodin, Edvard Grieg, Franz Schubert, Bedřich Smetana, Anton Webern, Johannes Brahms, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Felix Mendelssohn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Johann Sebastian Bach and renaissance composers of the 16^th and 17^th century such as Claudio Monteverdi, Samuel Scheidt and Tylman Susato. All in all, an extraordinarily diverse world of music.

THE OUTREACH ACTIVITIES

Outreach activities and free informal events for new and particularly young audiences are becoming an increasingly important part of the EUYO’s work. The Spring Tour 2022 includes the return of MUSIC MINUS THE RULES, the EUYO’s informal concert format for new and young audiences. Presenter Fabio Sartorelli will introduce Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, taking questions from the audience and guiding them into the heart of Bartok’s masterpiece.

In Finland, a Helsinki Community Day will see the EUYO’s players spread out across the city performing chamber music in a series of unusual venues, including art cafes, the the Oodi and Malmitalo libraries, the Stoa Culture Center in Itäkeskus and the Helsinki City Museum. At the same time the Europe Side by Side project co-organised with the Sibelius Academy at the Musiikkitalo will see students of the Sibelius Junior Academy and the Tempo Oulu El Sistema Orchestra join EUYO musicians and perform together under the direction of Finnish conductor Taavi Oramo.

These events are followed by Young Europe Speaks, part of the European Year of Youth 2022, in which EUYO musicians and around 100 young Helsinki musicians and dancers and guests will take part in an open discussion about the future of culture for young people in Europe, moderated by Dr. Guadalupe López-Íñiguez, and presented by the EUYO, The Observatory for Arts and Cultural Education Finland and The Center for Educational Research and Academic Development in the Arts, In cooperation with the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. The Helsinki outreach events conclude with one of EUYO’s legendary LATE-NIGHT SESSIONS, club-type events in which EUYO musicians chat with guests and the audience, performing music from across the world from the most classical to the most informal.

The Young Europe Comes to Finland residency concludes in Tampere with a Sharing Music in Tampere day. EUYO musicians will rehearse, give workshops and perform a concert in the Tampere Conservatory with musicians of the Tampere Conservatory, the Tampere Tempo Orchestra, the Pirkanmaa Regional Music Academy and the Tampere University of Applied Sciences, all in the spirit of sharing experiences and learning from each other. The concert will be conducted by Harri Lehtinen, Anna-Leena Lumme, Tanja Karjalainen and presenter Verna Kaunisto-Feodorow.

PARTNERS

We acknowledge the invaluable support of the EUYO’s funders, supporters, sponsors and partners, including in particular the European Commission’s Creative Europe programme, the Italian Ministry of Culture, Campus Grafenegg, The Provincial Government of Lower Austria, Department of Art and Culture, St. Pölten, Austria, Ferrara Musica, the Comune of Bolzano, and our National Partner in Italy RAI and the European Union’s 27 Member States.

The residency in Finland is in cooperation with the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and organised in partnership with a range of Helsinki and Finnish institutions and private persons including the EU Commission Representation in Finland and, Erkki Liikanen, the Punavuori Chamber Music Association (PuKama), the City of Helsinki, our national partners Sibelius Academy, the Musiikkitalo, the Tempo El Sistema programme, the Oodi Helsinki Central Library, the Tampere Conservatoire, the Pirkanmaa Regional Music Academy and the Tampere University of Applied Sciences. We give particular thanks to the Jane and Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, without whom Young Europe comes to Finland would not have been possible.