Avanti! Summer Sounds – Schubert retouché

It’s wonderful to welcome Eric Wubbels to Porvoo! At Suvisoitto, Wubbels’s works are set alongside music by Arnold Schönberg, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Bernhard Lang, and Tiina Myllärinen.The festival’s side theme, Schubert retouché, traces music connected to Franz Schubert. Listeners following this thread will encounter Bernhard Lang’s take on the legendary Winterreise—The Cold Trip—performed by soprano Johanna Zimmer and the Kekkonen Quartet; Metamorphosis of Moments Musicaux No. 3 by last year’s Teosto Prize winner Mioko Yokoyama; and Wubbels’s gretchen am spinnrade, performed by cellist Mariel Roberts together with the composer.Finally, in the festival’s closing concert, Schubert will be heard unretouched. Under the direction of Janne Nisonen, Gesang der Geister über den Wassern—a rarely performed masterpiece for eight male voices and low strings—brings the festival to a close.Steven Kazuo Takasugi’s Sideshow appears at Suvisoitto on two evenings. Cecilia Zilliacus is joined by Emil Holmström and Petri Piiparinen; the Avanti Quartet performs a string quartet by Iranian composer Anahita Abbasi. Petri Kumela takes on Fausto Romitelli’s solo electric guitar work Trash TV Trance, and Emilia Hoving conducts Finnish premieres by Márton Illés and Sarah Nemtsov.

- Joonas Ahonen, artistic director