American soprano Nadine Sierra, 30, will give a recital at the Turku Concert Hall on 11 August. This performance continues the Music Festival’s remarkable track record of bringing in top-notch vocal talent. The recital programme will include opera arias and music by Leonard Bernstein from a recent Deutsche Grammophon release.
Leonardo Chiodo, winner of the Turku Cello Competition and audience favourite, will give a recital on 10 Feb during the ‘Music in the Cathedral’ week.
NADINE SIERRA, 11 Aug 2019
The Turku Music Festival is Finland’s oldest continuously held festival, celebrating its 60th anniversary next summer, 8 to 22 August 2019. Over the past few years, the festival has made a point of bringing some of the world’s finest opera singers to perform in concert and give recitals at the festival. This year, American soprano Nadine Sierra will be giving a recital with Eytan Pessen on piano at the Turku Concert Hall on Sunday 11 August 2019.
At 20, Nadine Sierra became the youngest person ever to win the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in New York. Now, ten years later, she is joining the small elite group of sopranos who are in high demand around the world. Her engagements include the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera, La Scala in Milan, the Paris Opera, Covent Garden in London, the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples and the Zurich Opera. When she was making her début as Gilda in Rigoletto with Leo Nucci in the title role at La Scala in 2016, the audience erupted into applause, demanding a repeat of the duet the two had just sung – ‘Si, vendetta’ – a remarkable and rare occurrence in the history of that opera house. Many remember Nadine Sierra from the Bastille Day concert in France in 2017, televised around worldwide: this annual event is held at the Eiffel Tower and features the most distinguished opera singers of the world. Her engagements for spring 2019 include Gilda at the Metropolitan and the Berlin State Opera and recitals at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, at the Bordeaux Opera and at the Baden-Baden Festival. The recording of Rigoletto in which she participated as Gilda, and which also remained the last recording made by the late baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, in the title role, was nominated for a Grammy for best opera recording in 2019. The Grammies will be announced on 10 February.
Nadine Sierra remarks that the Turku Music Festival has a good reputation and many of her friends and colleagues have appeared there in recent years. She says she is happy to be able to perform in Finland with her friend and colleague Eytan Pessen at the 60th anniversary festival and looks forward to seeing many opera lovers in the audience.
MUSIC IN THE CATHEDRAL: LEONARDO CHIODO, 10 Feb 2019
Besides the main festival, the Turku Music Festival is once again organising a concert at Turku Cathedral during the ‘Music in the Cathedral’ week, on Sunday 10 February 2019 at 19.00. This recital concluding the week will be given by Leonardo Chiodo, winner and audience favourite of the Turku Cello Competition in 2018, with Tarmo Peltokoski on piano.
Leonardo Chiodo’s career is on an upward trajectory following his victory in the Turku Cello Competition in February 2018, followed by reaching the finals in the International Paulo Cello Competition. His recital at Turku Cathedral will feature music by Carlo Alfredo Piatti, Johann Sebastian Bach and Bohuslav Martinů.
“Turku Cathedral is a wonderful venue, and I am happy to have this opportunity to perform there. Because of my engagements abroad, I will not be able to perform at the Turku Music Festival in August, so I hope that audiences will come to this recital instead. The repertoire is particularly dear to me,” says Chiodo.
LEONARDO CHIODO (b. 1998 in Helsinki) won 1st prize in the XIII Turku Cello Competition and attained 4th place in the VI International Paulo Cello Competition, both in 2018. He began his cello studies with Juulia Holma at the age of ten and went on to study at the Sibelius Academy with Hannu Kiiski at the Junior Department from 2010 and with Professor Martti Rousi from 2015. Leonardo has appeared as a soloist in several European countries besides Finland. Leonardo plays a Carlo Guiseppe Testore cello (1718) owned by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
TARMO PELTOKOSKI (b. 2000) was a prizewinner at the Tampere Piano Competition in 2018 and the Leevi Madetoja Competition in 2018, where he won 1st prize. He has appeared as a soloist with several Finnish orchestras. The Pro Musica Foundation named him Young Musician of the Year in 2018, and in the same year he began studying orchestral conducting with Professor Atso Almila at the Sibelius Academy, having previously studied with Jorma Panula since 2014.
Tickets for both recitals go on sale on Wednesday 16 January at 09.00 at all Lippupiste points of sale throughout Finland.
Tickets
Tickets to the Turku Music Festival are sold by Lippupiste. Tickets for both recitals go on sale on Wednesday 16 January at 09.00 at all Lippupiste points of sale and R kiosks throughout Finland, and online at www.lippu.fi.
For ticket reservations or bookings or information on purchases, please phone +358 600 900 900. The cost of a call is EUR 1.98 per minute + local call charge. (The lines are open Mon to Sat 09.00–21.00, Sun 10.00–18.00.)
Tickets may also be bought at the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra box office at the Turku Concert Hall (Aninkaistenkatu 9), Thu and Fri 12.00–16.00, tel. +358 2 262 0333, e-mail . Reservations are also taken at the Turku Music Festival office, tel. +358 2 262 0812, e-mail .