Concert with the RSPO Orchestra Academy

Since 2016, an orchestra academy has been affiliated with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. The international RSPO Orchestra Academy is a one-year advanced academic programme for young musicians. The programme is run in collaboration with the Department of Music and Art at Linnaeus University in Växjö. Under the guidance of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s section leaders, the musicians receive individual coaching, chamber music training and orchestral experience.

They also showcase their talents through a series of public chamber music concerts – such as this one featuring this year’s academy musicians. Two musical worlds meet: contemporary Britain and Russian Romanticism. The Scottish composer Thea Musgrave (born 1928) was the focus of the 2018 Composer Festival at Konserthuset Stockholm – she attended in person, and a wide range of her works were performed. In Niobe (1987), for oboe and pre-recorded tape, the soloist interacts with an electronic counterpart in a work that brings the tragic essence of the myth to life – the despairing mother, turned to stone.

In Sergei Prokofiev’s (1891–1953) Sonata for Two Violins (1932), by contrast, we encounter absolute music, rich in contrasts between lyricism and intensity. Written for a concert society in Paris, the sonata blends folk-like simplicity with polyphonic sophistication. The two instruments are interwoven in a dense texture without accompaniment – a masterclass in clarity and balance.