Vasily Petrenko
Denis Kozhukhin George Gershwin
Sergei Prokofiev

Øyvind Torvund (b. 1976) wrote Two symphonic poems for the Oslo Philharmonic, which premiered them with Vasily Petrenko in 2019. The first poem is called Morning in the forest− a scene where the forest wakes up to idyllic birdsong but is gradually taken over by traffic and noise. Torvund wants to create an organic soundscape in the music without using authentic sounds from nature. The second piece, A Trip into the Future, begins with a march and a whistled melody that illustrates that someone is going on a trip. On the way, the walkers meet robots and many more unknowns.

George Gershwin (1898–1937) wrote his first significant hit Swanee in 1919. He wrote Broadway musicals for the next few years while studying classical music theory and orchestration. In 1922 he wrote Blue Monday, a kind of jazz opera that combined elements from jazz and classical music. The following year, Gershwin was asked by famous bandleader Paul Whiteman if he could write a piece for piano and jazz orchestra. In February 1924, George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was played for the very first time in his hometown of New York and was a huge success.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) left his native Russia during the revolution in 1917. After almost 20 years in the West, he returned as a famous composer. During the Second World War, he experienced great success, but after the war, Stalin sharpened his hard line towards artists, and Prokofiev lived his last years in fear, in poor health and poor. Symphony No. 7 from 1952 is reminiscent of Prokofiev's ballets Cinderella and Romeo and Juliet and has been interpreted as a nostalgic look back at the composer's childhood.