Göteborgs Konserthus Virtuoso and Colorful Piano

CAROLINE SHAW (b 1982) ENTR'ACTE Caroline Shaw was the youngest composer ever to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music when she received the prize at the age of 30 for the choral song Partita. She is also a trained violinist, chamber musician and singer, mostly in the group Roomful of Teeth. She has since received commissions from Carnegie Hall, the Guggenheim Museum, St Paul's Chamber Orchestra and our own mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. The Attacca Quartet won a 2020 Grammy for Best Chamber Music Album for their recording of Shaw's music, including the piece Entr'acte. Shaw wrote her chamber orchestra composition Entr'acte in 2011 after hearing a performance of Joseph Haydn's String Quartet op 77:2 that moved her deeply, not least the soulful switch to D flat major in the minuet's trio movement. She therefore let her own work follow the same structure as a classical minuet in three sections that show completely different sides. "Like suddenly seeing the other side of Alice's glasses" in Wonderland. Like some kind of absurd, fine-tuned, technicolor transformation. Here and there you get delicate moments of music from the classical era and the baroque, which have just discovered they are in the wrong century. Stig Jacobsson

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Piano Concerto No. 5 Allegro animato Andante Molto allegro Many have testified to what an excellent pianist Camille Saint-Saëns was in his youth. Richard Wagner told, with an admiration unusual for him, how the 25-year-old Saint-Saëns played long episodes from Tristan and Isolde by heart. It is therefore quite natural that the French master, even as a creative musician, devoted himself to the piano instrument to an unusually large extent. He composed no less than five piano concertos and in all cases was the soloist himself at the first performances. His fifth and last piano concerto was composed in 1896 in the temple city of Luxor in Egypt on one of his holiday trips, which has made it known as "The Egyptian". He himself likens it to a sea voyage. In the lyrical interlude there is a theme that is said to be taken from the boatmen's song on the Nile. In the brilliant final movement, the soloist gets to show his virtuoso side. No wonder it was used as an exam at the Paris Conservatoire.

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943) Symphonic Dances Non allegro Andante con moto, tempo di valse Lento assai. Allegro vivace "I am strongly influenced by Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov; but I have never - as far as I know - imitated anyone. When I write my music, I simply try to express what is in my heart. Whether there is love or bitterness or sadness or religiosity, these moods become part of my music." This was written by Sergei Rachmaninoff shortly before his death in 1943, three years after the completion of Symphonic Dances, his last work at all after several years of "silence". Actually, Rachmaninoff had composed no more than five important works since he left Russia in the revolutionary year of 1917 for an itinerant existence as a pianist and conductor in Europe and the United States. He had to provide for his family and that was not done as a Russian composer in the United States where most of his previous - and new - works received a tame reception. "Maybe I feel that the music I write is not accepted today. And maybe the real reason why I choose to interpret and not create music anymore is something else... Because when I left Russia, I left behind my longing to compose : when I lost my country I also lost myself." Symphonic dances had been in Rachmaninoff's mind as early as 1915 when he sketched music for a ballet called The Scythians for his good friend Michail Fokin. But Fokin did not want to choreograph it. 25 years later, Rachmaninoff used some of his older ideas in the first movement of Symphonic Dances. This time too Fokin was in the picture, they were neighbors on Long Island outside New York and Rachmaninoff had played the three movements for him on the piano. But Fokin died before the choreography began. GUNILLA PETERSÉN 2014

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1902 and the Stockholm Concert Hall has been the orchestra's home since 1926. Among the guest conductors are greats such as Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Herbert Blomstedt, Nathalie Stutzmann, Gianandrea Noseda and honorary conductors Sakari Oramo and Alan Gilbert. The orchestra has also started a close collaboration with the prominent Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst. The Royal Philharmonic's new chief conductor is the award-winning American Ryan Bancroft, who will formally take up his post starting with the 2023-2024 season. Finnish Sakari Oramo was the orchestra's chief conductor in the years 2008-2021. Together, over the years, they gained a lot of attention for both recordings and international tours. The German daily Die Welt described the Royal Philharmonic as "one of the world's best orchestras". The Royal Philharmonic has received a lot of attention for its recordings. Among these can be mentioned Carl Nielsen's six symphonies on three cd's (BIS), which were praised by critics worldwide and the CD with symphonies no. 1 and 3 was awarded the BBC Music Magazine Award for best classical orchestral production. Two cd's with recordings of Anders Hillborg's music have both been awarded the Swedish Grammis-award, and they have also released a cd with the American star soprano Renée Fleming.

Ryan Bancroft grew up in Los Angeles and first came to international attention when he won both first prize and the audience prize at the 2018 Malko Conducting Competition. Since then, his career has skyrocketed: in 2019 he was appointed new Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and after his first visit to Tapiola Sinfonietta, he was offered to become the orchestra's Artist in Association. He has also had successful collaborations with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In the 2023-2024 season, 33-year-old Ryan Bancroft takes over as the new chief conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Stockholm.

Seong-Jin Cho gained attention in 2015 when he won the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. In 2016 he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon and in 2023 he was awarded the prestigious Samsung Ho-Am Prize in the Arts. Cho collaborates with the world's leading orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchester de Paris, the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He works with conductors such as Myung-Whun Chung, Gustavo Dudamel, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Simon Rattle, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Lahav Shani. Highlights of Seong-Jin Cho's 2023-2024 season include debuts at the Salzburger Festspiele with the Mozarteumorchester and Ivor Bolton and a return to London's BBC Proms with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Santtu-Matias Rouvali. He returns to the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, makes appearances in Boston and Carnegie Hall, and makes long-awaited debuts with The Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. Seong-Jin Cho's latest recording is a solo album titled The Handel Project. In 2021 he released Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Scherzi with the London Symphony Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda for Deutsche Grammophon. He had previously recorded Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 as well as the four ballads. Born in 1994 in Seoul, Seong-Jin Cho gave his first public solo concert aged 11. In 2009, he became the youngest ever winner of Japan's Hamamatsu International Piano Competition. Seong-Jin Cho is now based in Berlin.