Principal Conductor Edward Gardner supported by Aud Jebsen
Principal Guest Conductor Karina Canellakis supported by Richard Buxton
Conductor Emeritus Vladimir Jurowski KBE Patron HRH The Duke of Kent KG
Artistic Director Jesús Herrera Chief Executive David Burke
Leader Pieter Schoeman supported by Neil Westreich
Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall
Wednesday 25 March 2026 | 7.30pm
Voices from Finland
Lotta Wennäkoski
Zelo (world premiere)* (20’)
Interval (20’)
Sibelius
Kullervo (70’)
Robin Ticciati
conductor
Miina-Liisa Värelä
soprano
Shenyang bass-baritone
YL Male Voice Choir
Chorusmaster: Pasi Hyökki
*Commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra
6.00pm | Free pre-concert performance | Royal Festival Hall LPO Showcase: Crisis Creates
Members of Crisis – all adults who have experienced homelessness – perform original music they have devised with LPO musicians and workshop leader Aga Serugo-Lugo during a week-long creative project.
Free and unticketed – all welcome.
Tonight in 2 minutes
New to classical? Short on time? Your quick guide to tonight’s concert. 5
The vibe
Voices from Finland
This concert pairs a brand-new contemporary work and an epic classic. First we hear the world premiere of Lotta Wennäkoski’s Zelo, a new orchestral piece by one of today’s leading Finnish composers. After the interval comes Sibelius’s Kullervo – a vast late-19thcentury work for orchestra, two solo singers and a male-voice choir, drawing on Finnish legends.
Who’s on stage?
Robin Ticciati – conductor
British conductor Robin Ticciati is Artistic Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where working closely with singers shapes his expressive and dramaticallycharged conducting style. Robin enjoys a longstanding partnership with the LPO, collaborating regularly both in the concert hall and in the opera pit.
Miina-Liisa Värelä & Shenyang – singers
Miina-Liisa and Shenyang join us after the interval as soloists in Sibelius’s Kullervo Both have made names for themselves on the world stage, both in opera and in concert. This is Shenyang’s second appearance with the LPO, while it’s Miina-Liisa’s concert debut with us.
YL Male Voice Choir
Our guest choir tonight is the world’s oldest Finnish-language choir. With the language and sound of Finnish composer Sibelius in their DNA, they’ll bring something very special to his work Kullervo.
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Tonight there are over 80 LPO musicians on stage. Many of our talented members enjoy busy solo, chamber and teaching careers alongside their orchestral work. Turn to page 6 to see a full player list.
What to expect
Take your seats...
The Orchestra tune up their instruments, then the conductor, Robin, enters the stage. Once the applause dies down, sit back and enjoy the music ...
Lotta Wennäkoski
Zelo
This new orchestral piece by Finnish composer Lotta Wennäkoski receives its first ever performance tonight. Lotta grew up steeped in the music of Jean Sibelius – who composed the other work in tonight’s concert – and that cultural backdrop helped shape her five-movement piece. As a world premiere, this is a rare chance to hear a new work come to life for the first time, and we’re delighted that the composer herself is here tonight to hear it.
Interval 20 min
Longer classical pieces are often made up of movements, or shorter sections. Applause is usually saved for after the final movement.
Jean Sibelius Kullervo
Sibelius’s Kullervo is a vast, five-movement work inspired by Finnish myth and folk traditions. It tells the story of the eponymous anti-hero from the Kalevala, Finland’s national epic poem.
The Orchestra, two solo singers and a male choir join forces to tell the story, tracing Kullervo’s troubled youth, his fatal mistakes, and ultimately his downfall. Listen for contrasts between quiet passages and big climaxes, simple repeating folk-style tunes inspired by traditional sung storytelling, and the choir’s powerful narrative role.
After the final piece, we applaud the performers. The conductor will acknowledge the Leader (chief First Violin), Pieter, and might highlight other players for particular appreciation and applause, with several rounds of bows bringing the evening to a celebratory close.
Want to read more? Turn to page 10 for a deeper dive into this evening’s pieces.
Welcome LPO news
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Welcome – Crisis Creates
This evening we welcome members of Crisis – adults who have experienced or are at risk of homelessness –to give a pre-concert performance on the Royal Festival Hall stage at 6pm, and to join us in the audience this evening.
Working with national charity Crisis UK, our ‘Crisis Creates’ project offers a safe space for participants to express themselves, work together and create a high-quality performance that inspires, connects and empowers. Over four days of workshops, the participants have devised music and lyrics as a group alongside LPO musicians and workshop leader Aga Serugo-Lugo, inspired by the Orchestra’s repertoire. We hope you enjoy it! To find out more, visit lpo.org.uk/project/crisis-creates
LPO Fellow Conductors 2026/27
We’re thrilled to announce our new LPO Fellow Conductors for the 2026/27 season: Enyi Okpara and Shira Samuels-Shragg, who will join the LPO family from September. We can’t wait to work with them!
Londoner Enyi (left) is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, and currently the Calleva Assistant Conductor at Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, while American Shira (below left) is a Juilliard School graduate and currently Assistant Conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
Launched in 2023, our flagship LPO Conducting Fellowship seeks to support the development of world-class conductors of the future. Each season, the programme offers an intensive opportunity to work closely with the Orchestra to outstanding early-career conductors from backgrounds currently underrepresented in the profession.
Uniquely groundbreaking and exhilarating to watch and hear, the London Philharmonic Orchestra has been celebrated as one of the world’s great orchestras since Sir Thomas Beecham founded it in 1932. Our mission is to create unrivalled orchestral experiences on stage and cultivate human connections beyond it, which we accomplish through live performances, online, and an extensive education and community programme, cementing our position as a leading orchestra for the 21st century.
Our home is at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, where we’re at the beating heart of London’s cultural life. You’ll also find us at our resident venues in Brighton, Eastbourne and Saffron Walden, and on tour worldwide. In 2024 we celebrated 60 years as Resident Symphony Orchestra at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, combining the magic of opera with Glyndebourne’s glorious setting in the Sussex countryside.
Soundtrack to key moments
Everyone will have heard the Grammy-nominated London Philharmonic Orchestra, whether it’s playing the world’s National Anthems for every medal ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, our iconic recording with Pavarotti that made Nessun Dorma a global football anthem, or closing the flotilla at The Queen’s Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant. And you’ll almost certainly have heard us on the soundtracks for major films including The Lord of the Rings
Sharing the wonder worldwide
We’re one of the world’s most-streamed orchestras, with over 15 million plays of our content each month. We’re the most followed UK orchestra on Instagram, the most followed orchestra globally on TikTok, and overall the third most followed globally across all social platforms. In 2024 we featured in a TV documentary series on Sky Arts: ‘Backstage with the London Philharmonic Orchestra’, which was nominated for a 2025 BAFTA. During 2025/26 we’re once again working with Marquee TV to broadcast selected live concerts to enjoy at home.
Our conductors
Our Principal Conductors have included great historic names like Sir Adrian Boult, Bernard Haitink, Klaus Tennstedt and Kurt Masur. In 2021 Edward Gardner became our 13th Principal Conductor, and Vladimir Jurowski became Conductor Emeritus. Karina Canellakis is our current Principal Guest Conductor, and Sir George Benjamin our Composer-in-Residence.
Next generations
We’re committed to nurturing the next generation of musicians and music-lovers: we love seeing the joy of children and families experiencing their first musical moments, and we’re passionate about inspiring schools and teachers through dedicated concerts, workshops, resources and training. Reflecting our values of
collaboration and inclusivity, our OrchLab and Open Sound Ensemble projects offer music-making opportunities for adults and young people with disabilities and special educational needs.
Today’s young instrumentalists are the orchestra members of the future, and we have a number of opportunities to support their progression. Our LPO Junior Artists programme leads the way in creating pathways into the profession for young artists from under-represented communities, and our LPO Young Composers and Foyle Future Firsts schemes support the next generation of professional musicians, bridging the transition from education to professional careers. In 2023 we launched the LPO Conducting Fellowship, supporting the development of outstanding earlycareer conductors from backgrounds under-represented in the profession.
2025/26 season
This season’s theme, Harmony with Nature, explores humanity’s bond with the natural world through works by Beethoven, Sibelius, Mendelssohn, Elgar and Dvořák; masterpieces of an era that saw nature as a mirror of human emotion. Closer to our own time, we’ll hear from composers as diverse as Duke Ellington, John Luther Adams and Anna Thorvaldsdottir, who have all found a source of creative energy in the processes of nature.
Highlights with Principal Conductor Edward Gardner include symphonies by Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Brahms and Rachmaninov; a pair of concerts spotlighting 20th-century Central European composers; an evening dedicated to Elgar; and a performance of Berg’s Wozzeck to end the season. We also welcome back Karina Canellakis and Vladimir Jurowski, as well as guest conductors including Robin Ticciati, Kirill Karabits, Mark Elder and Kahchun Wong. Our lineup of soloists this season includes violinists Anne-Sophie Mutter, Alina Ibragimova, James Ehnes and Himari; cellist Nicolas Altstaedt; and pianists Yefim Bronfman, Alexandre Kantorow and Tomoko Mukaiyama. The season features nine world and UK premieres, including Tan Dun’s choral ‘Ode to Peace’ Nine, and A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina) by jazz icon Terence Blanchard.
This season also sees tours to South Korea and across Europe, as well as a wide range of performances and community events in our Brighton, Eastbourne and Saffron Walden residencies.
lpo.org.uk
Pieter Schoeman
Leader
Pieter Schoeman was appointed Leader of the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2008, having previously been Co-Leader since 2002. He is also a Professor of Violin at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance.
Pieter has performed worldwide as a soloist and recitalist in such famous halls as the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Moscow’s Rachmaninoff Hall, Capella Hall in St Petersburg, Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, and the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. He has also appeared as Guest Leader with many prestigious orchestras across the world. As a chamber musician, he regularly appears at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall. His chamber music partners have included Anne-Sophie Mutter, Veronika Eberle, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Boris Garlitsky, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Martin Helmchen and Julia Fischer.
Pieter has performed numerous times as a soloist with the LPO. Highlights have included an appearance as both conductor and soloist in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, the Brahms Double Concerto with Kristina Blaumane, Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2, and the Britten Double Concerto with Alexander Zemtsov, which was released on the LPO Label to great critical acclaim.
Pieter’s chair in the LPO is generously supported by Neil Westreich.
New video series: ‘Humans of the Orchestra’ Scan the QR code to watch our interview with Pieter
Chair supported by Irina Gofman & Mr Rodrik V. G. Cave
Minn Majoe
Chair supported by Dr Alex & Maria Chan
Martin Höhmann
Thomas Eisner
Yang Zhang
Katalin Varnagy
Grace Lee
Rasa Zukauskaite
Alison Strange
Ronald Long
Daniel Pukach
Victoria Gill
Camille Buitenhuis
Rebecca Dinning
Second Violins
Tania Mazzetti Principal
Chair supported by The Candide Trust
Emma Oldfield Co-Principal
Claudia Tarrant-Matthews
Coco Inman
Nancy Elan
Kate Birchall
Marie-Anne Mairesse
Ashley Stevens
Sophie Phillips
Chair supported by Friends of the Orchestra
Sioni Williams
Kate Cole
Emma Crossley
Olivia Ziani
José Nuno Cabrita Matias
Violas
Dunia Ershova
Guest Principal
Samuel Burstin
Benedetto Pollani
Laura Vallejo
Lucia Ortiz Sauco
On stage tonight
Martin Wray
Chair supported by David & Bettina Harden
Katharine Leek
James Heron
Shiry Rashkovsky
Raquel López Bolívar
Kate De Campos
Pamela Ferriman
Cellos
Kristina Blaumane Principal
Chair supported by Bianca & Stuart Roden
Henry Shapard Co-Principal
David Lale
Francis Bucknall
Leo Melvin
Tom Roff
Helen Thomas
Iain Ward
Hee Yeon Cho
Tamaki Sugimoto
Double Basses
Kevin Rundell* Principal
Hugh Kluger
George Peniston
Tom Walley
Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton
Laura Murphy
Chair supported by Ian Ferguson & Susan Tranter
Charlotte Kerbegian
Yat Hei Lee
Siret Lust
Flutes
Juliette Bausor Principal
Chair supported by Malcolm & Alison Thwaites
Hannah Grayson
Piccolo
Stewart McIlwham*
Principal
Chair supported by The Thompson
Family Charitable Trust
Oboes
Ian Hardwick* Principal
Alice Munday
Chair supported by David & Yi
Buckley
Cor Anglais
Ben Marshall
Clarinets
Thomas Watmough Principal
Chair supported by Roger Greenwood
James Maltby
Bass Clarinet
Paul Richards* Principal
Bassoons
Jonathan Davies* Principal
Chair supported by Sir Simon Robey
Helen Storey*
Horns
Annemarie Federle Principal
Chair supported by Victoria Robey CBE
John Ryan* Principal
Martin Hobbs
Duncan Fuller
Gareth Mollison
Trumpets
Tom Nielsen* Principal
Anne McAneney*
David Hilton
Trombones
Mark Templeton* Principal
Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton
David Whitehouse
Bass Trombone
Lyndon Meredith Principal
Tuba
Lee Tsarmaklis* Principal
Chair supported by William & Alex de Winton
Timpani
Simon Carrington*
Principal
Chair supported by Victoria Robey CBE
Percussion
Andrew Barclay* Principal
Chair supported by Gill & Garf Collins
Karen Hutt Co-Principal
Chair supported by Joe Topley & Tracey Countryman
Oliver Yates
Harp
Rosanna Rolton
Guest Principal
Piano
Philip Moore
*Professor at a London conservatoire
Surtitles
Andrew Kingsmill
The LPO also acknowledges the following chair supporters whose players are not present at this concert:
An anonymous donor
Sir Nigel Boardman & Prof. Lynda Gratton
Dr Barry Grimaldi
The Williams family in memory of Grenville Williams
Robin Ticciati conductor
Robin Ticciati OBE is Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Honorary Member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He was Music Director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 2017–24 and Principal Conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra from 2009–18.
Robin regularly collaborates with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, both on the concert stage and in opera at Glyndebourne – last summer he conducted the Orchestra in performances of Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová and Wagner’s Parsifal, and this summer they will reunite for Puccini’s Tosca and Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. In March 2025, he conducted the Orchestra in a Royal Festival Hall concert pairing Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 and Schumann’s Piano Concerto with soloist Francesco Piemontesi.
Robin is also a regular guest conductor with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Other recent highlights have included appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Dresden Staatskapelle. In the US, he has appeared with The Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
This season, Robin returns to the Vienna Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the BBC Proms with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He makes debuts with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and with the Montreal and Pittsburgh symphony orchestras.
A renowned opera conductor, Robin has led productions at the Teatro alla Scala Milan, Berlin State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, New York. In November 2025, he made his debut at the Vienna State Opera with Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, and future plans include his debut at the Bavarian State Opera.
Born in London, Robin Ticciati is a violinist, pianist and percussionist by training. He was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain when, aged 15, he turned to conducting under the guidance of Sir Colin Davis and Sir Simon Rattle. He holds the position of Sir Colin Davis Fellow of Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music. Robin was awarded an OBE for services to music in The Queen’s Birthday Honours 2019.
Building a strong profile in the German dramatic repertoire, Finnish soprano Miina-Liisa Värelä is a sought-after interpreter of The Dyer’s Wife in Strauss’s opera Die Frau ohne Schatten, a role she performed most recently at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden with the Berlin Philharmonic under Kirill Petrenko, and at the Semperoper Dresden under Christian Thielemann. Established as a leading Wagnerian, she has also garnered tremendous acclaim as Isolde (Tristan und Isolde) with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, and at both Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the BBC Proms with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Robin Ticciati. She made her Bayreuth Festival debut in 2025 as Ortrud in Lohengrin.
Miina-Liisa’s 2025/26 season is no less impressive. It includes her anticipated debut as Brünnhilde (Die Walküre) – first in concert with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Daniel Harding, before bringing the role to the stage in Tobias Kratzer’s new production at the Bavarian State Opera under Vladimir Jurowski. She also returns to Oper Frankfurt as Isolde under Thomas Guggeis, and continues her celebrated new association with the Bayreuth Festival as Kundry (Parsifal) under Pablo Heras-Casado.
Miina-Liisa Värelä is a regular presence on the concert platform, with a repertoire including Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14, Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder and Strauss’s Four Last Songs. Earlier this season, she joined the Orchestre de Paris and Daniel Harding as Sieglinde in a concert performance of the first act of Die Walküre.
Tonight is Miina-Liisa Värelä’s concert debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Shenyang bass-baritone
From the moment Shenyang won the prestigious BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 2007, his ascent to international prominence was assured. His career, defined by elegant and precise singing, was launched with early acclaim for interpretations of Mozart, Rossini and Handel, and in recent years, he has ventured into more dramatic and psychologically complex repertoire, embracing the works of Beethoven, Strauss and Wagner.
Shenyang created the title role in Tan Dun’s Buddha Passion, premiered at the Dresden Festival in 2018. In January 2023, he made his London Philharmonic Orchestra debut in the UK premiere of the work at the Royal Festival Hall under the composer’s baton.
Recent performances as Don Pizarro (Fidelio) with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich under Paavo Järvi have marked a major evolution in both his vocal power and dramatic intensity, and his portrayal of Jochanaan (Salome) with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra under Alexander Liebreich was hailed for its visceral force. Shenyang’s affinity for Wagner has also become a defining feature of his calendar, and his portrayal of Wotan (Das Rheingold) with the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, and his upcoming debut in Die Walküre next month as part of ‘Bayreuth in Shanghai’, further confirm his growing stature in this repertoire.
Further highlights this season include his debut as Amonasro (Aida) at Washington National Opera under Kwamé Ryan, concert performances of Fidelio at the Beethoven Easter Festival under Leopold Hager, and Duke Bluebeard’s Castle with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu.
For more than 130 years, the YL Male Voice Choir has been at the cutting edge of the art of male choir singing in Finland. Established in 1883 as Ylioppilaskunnan Laulajat (Helsinki University Chorus), the YL Male Voice Choir is Finland’s best-known male choir and a national institution. It is the oldest Finnish-language choir, and as such, an integral part of Finland’s history.
The YL Male Voice Choir has always premiered and recorded works by major living composers. The Choir is particularly known as a champion of the music of Jean Sibelius, whose most prominent male choir works were commissioned by the YL Male Voice Choir. In addition to its broad a cappella repertoire spanning numerous eras and styles, the Choir performs and records works for male choir and symphony orchestra with internationally distinguished conductors.
With many award-winning recordings and extensive foreign tours to its credit, the YL Male Voice Choir has made itself known and respected worldwide. This has also resulted in bringing the Finnish choral art into the canon of international classical music. Today, the Choir often seeks to transcend the conventional bounds of choral music through collaboration with soloists and musicians from various genres. In addition to performing with world-class orchestras, the Choir has appeared with stars of Finnish popular music and on the club scene in Helsinki. At the same time, it naturally cherishes and upholds its valued traditions, such as the traditional 1 May open-air concert and the traditional Christmas Concert series, attracting around 10,000 listeners each year.
Pasi Hyökki chorusmaster
Pasi Hyökki MMus (b. 1970) is a choral conductor and sopranist. He has been Artistic Director of the YL Male Voice Choir since 2010. He is also Artistic Director of the Tapiola Choir and Principal Guest Conductor of the EMO Ensemble chamber choir, which he founded. He has won several choral and ensemble competitions with the EMO Ensemble, the Talla vocal ensemble and the Cantabile chamber choir, and has received numerous awards for his outstanding work. He is also a frequent jury member in international choral competitions.
(In the wind I find my fire-place, in the rain I find my sauna – Tuulessa tulisijani, satehessa saunan löyly)
5. Epilogue
Like many Finns, I grew up with the music of Jean Sibelius – as a music-loving teenager, I used to listen to his symphonies over and over again. Sibelius is an inescapable figure in Finland – almost too big a hero for such a small country.
Kullervo (1892) was Sibelius’s first orchestral work, full of gloomy spirit and captivating themes. Although this is not the first time I have been prompted to compose a piece inspired by Sibelius – in 2015 I wrote Verdigris, with allusions to En Saga – I found myself getting excited about Kullervo’s energy and roughness while sketching my own orchestral piece Zelo.
Both Kullervo and Zelo have five movements, and each of Zelo’s movements refers to an aspect (or two) of the corresponding Sibelius movement. In the first movement, ‘Introduction’, traces of Kullervo’s main theme are woven into the kinetic texture of the music. The pensive second movement, ‘Cradling’, is built on a motif related to the lullaby motif in Sibelius’s second movement, ‘Kullervo’s Youth’. Kullervo’s dramatic third movement lent me the dactyl rhythm (a long note followed by two short ones) that Sibelius uses to evoke a sleigh ride. My third movement – which is in places fierce, too – bears the same title as the complete work: Zelo is Italian for ‘zeal’, or ‘enthusiasm’.
Programme notes
Kullervo is one of the most famous characters of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, and his violent and tragic story has inspired numerous artists over the years. For me, Kullervo is above all an endlessly inconsolable and lonely figure, who has been mistreated from the very beginning of his life. My fourth movement, ‘Lamento (del vento)’, therefore has a verse from the Kalevala as its motto: ‘In the wind I find my fireplace, in the rain I find my sauna’ (English translation by W. F. Kirby, 1907). In Sibelius’s fourth movement, Kullervo goes to war, and the work’s last movement very tragically describes his death. I, for my part, wanted to compose a brighter Epilogue: the kinetic energy of the first movement returns.
I wish to express my warmest thanks to the London Philharmonic Orchesta and maestro Robin Ticciati for the opportunity to write this work.
Lotta Wennäkoski, 2026
‘Full of drive and instrumental imagination … a composer with imagination and a strong ability to move, captivate and impress.’
MusicWebInternational on Lotta Wennäkoski (Review of Flounce/Sigla/Sedecim, Ondine, 2023)
About the composer
Lotta Wennäkoski was born in 1970 in Helsinki, Finland, and initially studied violin, music theory and Hungarian folk music at the Béla Bartók Conservatory in Budapest. She then studied music theory and composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, receiving her diploma in 2000. Her principal composition teachers have been Eero Hämeenniemi, Kaija Saariaho and Paavo Heininen, and she also studied in the Netherlands with Louis Andriessen.
Wennäkoski’s output consists of orchestral, chamber and vocal works, and her pieces are frequently performed worldwide. In 2017, the BBC commissioned the orchestral work Flounce, which was premiered at the 2017 Last Night of the Proms by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo. To date, the work has now been performed more than 50 times.
Among later notable commissions are the string quartet Pige (2022) for the Danish String Quartet, the harp concerto Sigla (2022) for Sivan Magen, and the violin concerto Prosoidia (2023) for Ilya Gringolts and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Autumn 2025 brought two premieres: in October, Lucie Horsch and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra premiered the recorder concerto Vents et lyres. In November, Alin for double bass and ensemble received its premiere at the Helsinki Music Centre by Adrian Rigopulos and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. Wennäkoski has also composed an opera, Regine, commissioned by the Savonlinna Opera Festival.
Lotta Wennäkoski’s orchestral music has been recorded by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra – the album Soie was released in 2015 and Sigla in 2023, both on the Ondine label. The latter was awarded the Best Contemporary Album of the Year at the 2023 Gramophone Awards.
Interval – 20 minutes
An announcement will be made five minutes before the end of the interval.
Programme notes
Jean Sibelius
1865–1957
Kullervo
1892
Miina-Liisa Värelä soprano
Shenyang bass-baritone
YL Male Voice Choir
1. Introduction
2. Kullervo’s Youth
3. Kullervo and his Sister
4. Kullervo Goes to War
5. Kullervo’s Death
Moving abroad is a good way to induce patriotism for your homeland. When Jean Sibelius was studying in Vienna in 1890, the Finland he had left behind was bristling under Russian occupation. Sibelius’s teachers Robert Fuchs and Karl Goldmark were urging their 25-year-old pupil to embrace his nationality. This was the context for Sibelius’s Kullervo – not just a colossal statement of the composer’s ambition, originality and nationality, but on its first performance in Helsinki on 29 April 1892, a seismic event for a Finland on the road to musical and political independence.
In Vienna, Sibelius’s ears were opened to all sorts of music from Italian opera to stern Germanic symphonies. Two of the latter lodged themselves in his consciousness: Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3 –music whose expanse and depth mesmerised Sibelius – and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, with its embedding of national poetry, by means of a choir, into a symphonic format.
In response, Sibelius started to consider the creation of a thoroughly Finnish ‘symphonic poem’. It was clear where his text would come from. He had been fervently re-reading Finland’s national epic poem, the Kalevala, from which he turned to the episode telling of the antihero Kullervo, a youth unable to distinguish between right and wrong who unknowingly seduces his sister before indulging in a rampage of ultra-violence and eventually committing suicide.
It was a story on the borderline of heathen and Christian times whose ultimate atonement was suggestive of a new dawn. If anyone in 1890s Helsinki missed the nationalistic symbolism in the story, at least they’d have heard it in Sibelius’s music. The critic Oskar Merikanto wrote of Kullervo that ‘we [Finns] recognised the melodies as our own, even though we had not heard them before’.
Programme notes
Merikanto was referring to the distinctive shape and gait of Sibelius’s tunes. Before starting work on the score back in Helsinki, Sibelius had visited Finland’s most renowned folk singer Larin Paraske, scribbling down what he heard: the chanting of folk stories in long, emotionally strained incantations. Their residue of the distinct, gabbling rhythmic patterns of Paraske’s singing can be heard all over Kullervo – in its profusion of tight but malleable melodies that obsess over a cluster of close pitches, and in the five-in-a-bar rhythms of the male choir’s contributions to the third movement, where the choir’s fondness for repeating the identifying phrase ‘Kullervo, Kalervan poika / sinisukka äijön lapsi’ (‘Kullervo, son of Kalervo / With the very bluest of stockings’) ratchets up tension.
Kullervo launches with a brooding introductory movement whose opening bars channel the spirit and sound of Finland’s plucked national musical instrument, the kantele, and whose fatalistic ending foreshadows what’s still to come. ‘Kullervo’s Youth’ is a lullaby with aggression lurking within. ‘Kullervo and his Sister’ introduces human voices and the story itself. While soloists represent those two characters, the chorus narrates events with the neutrality of a Norse saga and the plain-speaking of the rune singers. From that, a particular form of tension emerges. ‘Kullervo Goes to War’ replants elements of a Bruckner-style scherzo in the muddy soil of folk music, building to what the musicologist Daniel Grimley has described as ‘a brilliant clash of iron and steel’. In ‘Kullervo’s Death’, the singers return to tell of the hero’s demise, but it’s an orchestral crescendo that signals his actual moment of suicide.
Kullervo was only the second piece of music written in Finland that could claim symphonic proportions (German-born Fredrik Pacius composed his Symphony in D minor in Helsinki in 1850). To perform, it required the presence on stage of just about every competent musical performer in Helsinki.
In the context of Sibelius’s later works, Kullervo can seem a little rough-edged and possessed of a certain megalomania. It was long thought the work’s experimentalist streak led to Sibelius withdrawing the piece. Recent research suggests a more innocent reason for the lack of performances between 1892 and 1958: the printed parts got lost. Either way, Kullervo launched its composer’s career like a volcanic eruption. It remains a work, in the words of Sibelius’s biographer Glenda Dawn Goss, ‘primitive, raw, flawed … and utterly spellbinding.’
We hope you enjoyed tonight’s concert. Could you spare a few moments afterwards to complete a short survey about your experience? Your feedback is invaluable to us and will help to shape our future plans. Just scan the QR code to begin the survey. Thank you!
Courtesy of the Royal College of Music, London
Beethoven’s Ninth
Sat 28 Mar 2026, 7.30pm
Tan Dun Choral Concerto: Nine (UK premiere)
Beethoven Symphony No. 9
Tan Dun conductor
Elizabeth Watts soprano
Hongni Wu mezzo-soprano
John Findon tenor
Dingle Yandell bass-baritone
London Philharmonic Choir
London Chinese Philharmonic Choir
Pictures at an Exhibition
Wed 1 Apr 2026, 7.30pm
Mark-Anthony Turnage
Three Screaming Popes
Bartók Violin Concerto No. 1
Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition
Edward Gardner conductor
Alina Ibragimova violin
Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony
Wed 8 Apr 2026, 7.30pm
Anna Thorvaldsdottir
CATAMORPHOSIS
Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1
Beethoven Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral)
Kirill Karabits conductor
Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider violin
6pm | Royal Festival Hall
The Nature Dialogues:
Harmony with our Fragile Earth
Free pre-concert talk with scientist
Johan Rockström, environmentalist
Tony Juniper and composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir.
Edward Gardner
Alina Ibragimova
The Nature Dialogues
Fascinating free pre-concert talks as part of our 2025/26 season theme, Harmony with Nature
Book free tickets online at lpo.org.uk
Harmony with our Fragile Earth
Wednesday 8 April 2026, 6pm, Royal Festival Hall
With scientist Johan Rockström, environmentalist Tony Juniper and composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir
Harmony with our Changing Planet
Friday 17 April 2026, 6pm
Royal Festival Hall
With social scientist Gail Whiteman
After Dark:
200 Years of ZSL
Wednesday 15 April 2026
9.30pm
Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer
Following the 7.30pm LPO concert ‘Carnival of the Animals’
Celebrate ZSL’s 200th anniversary with a lively late-night performance by the Orchestra’s brass and percussion players. It features a fanfare by William Walton, written 50 years ago for ZSL’s 150th anniversary, plus other celebratory and wildlifethemed works.
For ticket information, visit lpo.org.uk
Annual Appeal 2026:
Beyond the Concert Hall
Building communities. Creating connections. Enriching lives.
We believe that music is powerful, and we are committed to harnessing its extraordinary ability to break down barriers and forge shared, meaningful human experiences.
Donate to Beyond the Concert Hall and your gift will support impactful, co-created projects. Stand beside us as we use music and music-making to raise confidence and aspirations, boost wellbeing and creativity, and share joy with those who have limited access.
‘I
am going through a very hard time. This project has healed my heart.’ Crisis Creates participant
Donate online at lpo.org.uk/beyondthehall, scan the QR code, or call the LPO Individual Giving Team on 020 7840 4212 or 020 7840 4225.
Sound Futures donors
We are grateful to the following donors for their generous contributions to our Sound Futures campaign. Thanks to their support, we successfully raised £1 million by 30 April 2015 which has now been matched pound for pound by Arts Council England through a Catalyst Endowment grant. This has enabled us to create a £2 million endowment fund supporting special artistic projects, creative programming and education work with key venue partners including our Southbank Centre home. Supporters listed below donated £500 or over. For a full list of those who have given to this campaign please visit lpo.org.uk/soundfutures
Masur Circle
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(Canada)
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and all other donors who wish to remain anonymous
Thank you
As a registered charity, we are extremely grateful to all our supporters who have given generously to the LPO over the past year to help maintain the breadth and depth of the LPO’s activities, as well as supporting the Orchestra both on and off the concert platform.
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Thank you
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We are grateful to the Board of the American Friends of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, who assist with fundraising for our activities in the United States of America:
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Lora Aroyo
Jon Carter
Alexandra Jupin
Natalie Pray MBE
Dr Irene Rosner David
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Minn Majoe*
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*Player-Director
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Vladimir Jurowski conductor LPO-0139 Released 23 January 2026
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