Easter 2025 Editorial
I recently had the wonderful opportunity to see and hear one of the world’s greatest living conductors and Sibelius interpreters, Okko Kamu, in rehearsals and concert with the Jyväskylä Sinfonia in Finland. Okko Kamu was conducting Sibelius’s Second Symphony, the work with which he won the First Herbert Von Karajan Conducting Competition in 1969. His recording with the Berlin Philharmonic of this work is sine qua non.
The experience was already extraordinary and then on one of the last days of rehearsals, hundreds and hundreds of Jyväskylä school children arrived in bus after bus to attend a rehearsal of the Sibelius. Having especially travelled to Jyväskylä on a musical pilgrimage, so to speak, I was somewhat concerned at whether the precious rehearsal would be put in jeopardy by distracting noises from all these hundreds of children who filled half of the hall.
I need not have worried at all. You could have heard a pin drop. In front of me there was a mother with a baby who could not yet stand up independently, but insisted on standing upright in its mother’s lap and with a wide smile observed the whole rehearsal entranced. I was reminded of the great Hungarian composer, Zoltan Kodaly’s words, when asked when a child should begin its musical education, he replied: "Nine months before birth".
As artists we must be concerned where future audiences or museum visitors will come from and such active cultural exposure, thanks to the educational, cultural and orchestral figures working together in Jyväskylä made this wonderful opportunity for the children and young people possible.
I was lucky as a child that culture was part of my life, with a mother who was an actor and a father who loved the Arts, so I would have been exposed to the Arts in any case. However not every child is. I remember what a wonderful impression it made on the children, including me, when a troupe of dancers and musicians visited our primary school in Australia with a performance of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.
Ensemble XXI on its tours has always made a point of performing in schools or supporting schools and our recent work in Kosovo has been no exception.
Ensemble XXI’s Polar Voices continues apace with the launch of a nationwide tour of Finland of Concertmaster, Pia Siirala’s photographic and film exhibition of the Chukchi Elders whom she recorded during her years of field trips to the Russian Far East and the Arctic region of Chukotka. It is being received very well, and visitors are fascinated with the unique insight into this small nation at the end of Russia, facing the United States over the Bering Strait. More details about the exhibition and where you can catch can be found here.
In a most extraordinary and surprising development, one of our musicians, Nadezhda Kuzmina discovered a video that had been made by her husband, the cellist Alexei Danilenko, at a complete performance of Messiah some years ago, the existence of which we knew nothing about. Nadezhda has been working on it to restore it.
This Easter we are releasing some excerpts from the performance with a Moscow Children’s choir and the Men’s Ensemble of Helsinki Cathedral’s choir, Cantores Minores.
I hope that you will enjoy these performances, and Ensemble XXI wishes you all a Blessed and Peaceful Easter!
Lygia O'Riordan
