26/27 Season

When wolves take over a Wagner opera, a Bavarian mythical creature is transformed into sound, and Stravinsky's nightingale sings in a symphonic poem, the stage is set for an extraordinary concert. We open the Ultima Festival with two Norwegian premieres: Øyvind Torvund's dreamlike electronic universe and Kristine Tjøgersen's Wolpertinger, inspired by German taxidermists and the strange creatures of the Alpine forest.

• Øyvind Torvund  Two Pieces for Orchestra and Electronics (commission)
• Igor Stravinskij  Le chant du rossignol
• Kristine Tjøgersen  Wolpertinger (commission)

• Ilan Volkov,  Conductor

In the Resurrection, Mahler sought to answer some of life's greatest questions through music alone. The result is a monumental symphony in which movements of death and despair culminate in a finale full of hope—both for the afterlife and for humanity here and now. Daniel Harding conducts the Oslo Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, with soloists Sabine Devieilhe and Marianne Crebassa.

• Gustav Mahler  Symfoni nr. 2

• Daniel Harding,  Dirigent
• Sabine Devieilhe,  Sopran
• Marianne Crebassa,  Mezzosopran
• Oslo Filharmoniske Kor, 
• Simon Halsey,  Kunstnerisk leder for koraktiviteter

What do you get when classical music meets trash cans, scrap metal, and street theatre? TRASH brings its homemade instruments into the orchestra and creates a wordless performance where Shostakovich and Grieg are joined by comedy, stomp, and sonic magic. Ingunn Korsgård Hagen conducts this concert, perfect for everyone who loves music.

•  Featuring music by, among others, Dmitri Shostakovich, Modest Mussorgsky, Edvard Grieg and Johannes Brahms.

• Ingunn Korsgård Hagen,  Conductor
• Hamilton & Mikkelsen,  Trash men

Vivi Vassileva is the soloist in the Norwegian premiere of Sauli Zinovjev's percussion concerto A Savage Beat, inspired by Indigenous peoples' ritual use of drums and rhythms. Samuel Barber's Essay No. 2 was written shortly before he was called up for service in the Second World War. Musicians from Ung Filharmoni sit side by side with the orchestra's musicians in Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. Marin Alsop conducts this concert marking the Ung Filharmoni's 10th anniversary.

• Samuel Barber  Essay No. 2
• Sauli Zinovjev  A Savage Beat
• Dmitri Shostakovich  Symphony No. 5

• Marin Alsop,  Conductor
• Vivi Vassileva,  Percussion
• Ung Filharmoni, 

In this concert with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra's new chief conductor, Tabita Berglund, we encounter music shaped at the intersection of passion and longing, of the completed and the unfinished. Three composers, four different ways of exploring the yearning, the unresolved, and the cautiously hopeful. From Mahler's hidden love song and Schubert's enigmatic Eighth Symphony, to the deeply personal Rückert-Lieder and Irgens-Jensen's emotionally charged Passacaglia.

• Gustav Mahler  Blumine
• Franz Schubert  Symphony No. 8, «Unfinished»
• Gustav Mahler  Rückert Lieder
• Ludvig Irgens-Jensen  Passacaglia

• Tabita Berglund,  Conductor
• Tone Kummervold,  Mezzosoprano