The Turku Music Festival is expanding its concert series beyond the summer season and is pleased to announce two concerts in 2020. Soprano Nadine Sierra appears with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, and countertenor Franco Fagioli returns to Turku with the Basel Chamber Orchestra and a Mozart programme.
After the highly successful 60th Turku Music Festival, we are looking towards the future. Our main event next year is from 6 to 16 Aug 2020, but the Turku Music Festival Foundation is also looking to expand its concert series and will increasingly be organising concerts beyond the festival in August and even out of the summer season.
“We are now announcing two fine events for next year, one at the actual Festival in August and the other in October 2020. We had an exceptionally high volume of visitor feedback requesting more high-quality concerts. Many of the concerts and additional concerts we gave this August were sold out. Although it is not really possible to increase the number of concerts at the actual Festival in August by any significant number, we do want to respond to national demand and expand our operations, and the logical solution is to hold concerts in the winter too.
“Both of the concerts now announced will begin at 18.00, this too in response to audience feedback: our visitors want to sample the restaurants in Turku as well as listen to music, and starting concerts earlier will give more time for dining afterwards. This will suit audience members both from the Turku area and from further afield. We aim to address all the various components that go into a concert experience and increase the attractiveness of Turku,” says Liisa Ketomäki, Managing Director of the Turku Music Festival Foundation.
Nadine Sierra to appear with the Turku Philharmonic on 13 Aug 2020 at 18.00
American soprano Nadine Sierra appears with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra at the Concert Hall in Turku on Thursday 13 August 2020 at 18.00. The conductor is Lorenzo Passerini, and the programme features Sierra’s favourite opera arias by composers such as Donizetti, Gounod, Puccini and Verdi.
Soprano NADINE SIERRA is one of the most promising emerging talents in opera, having won the Richard Tucker prize in 2018 and the Beverly Sills prize at the Metropolitan Opera in 2018. She originally fell in love with opera after seeing a VHS recording of La bohème in her childhood home in Florida at the age of six and is now creating a career involving appearances at many of the world’s leading opera houses: as Musetta at the San Francisco Opera, as Gilda in Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera, the Berlin State Opera and the Paris National Opera – a role for which she was particularly commended – the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor at La Fenice in Venice and elsewhere, and several leading roles in Mozart operas.
Nadine Sierra’s breathtaking career ascent has been covered in media ranging from Vogue to Opera News. She has numerous Instagram followers and a chapter dedicated to her in the book Driven: Six Incredible Musical Journeys (2011) by Nick Romeo.
Countertenor Franco Fagioli to return to Turku with the Basel Chamber Orchestra in a Mozart programme on Sunday 4 Oct 2020 at 18.00
Having dazzled the audience at the performance of Agrippina at the Turku Music Festival this past summer, countertenor Franco Fagioli returns to Turku with the Basel Chamber Orchestra and a programme of Mozart arias originally written for castrati. The concert is held on the same weekend as the Turku Book Fair and the Food and Wine Fair.
One of the world’s most sought-after countertenors, Fagioli charmed the Finnish audience as Emperor Nero in Handel’s opera Agrippina in the head start of the Turku Music Festival last summer.
“Immediately after the concert, we received a lot of messages from listeners wishing for him to return soon, and when we got the chance to book him and the fine Basel Chamber Orchestra, we jumped at it. Even better, the concert will coincide with the Turku Book Fair and the Food and Wine Fair, allowing visitors to combine several experiences in one weekend,” says Liisa Ketomäki, Managing Director of the Turku Music Festival Foundation.
The Turku Music Festival will publish its entire programme on Monday 9 March 2020.