Dear Friends,
I am a very lucky person.
When I was living in the states, I resigned myself to the likelihood that Pettersson was just another one of those composers who I could only enjoy on recordings, but never in concert.
In the next 14 days, I will experience something I never thought was possible in one lifetime. In the next 14 days, I will hear three, that's right, three (tre/kolme in Swedish/Finnish) Pettersson works in concert. If you include the performance of the Concerto for Violin and String Quartet that I attended last April, that will make four Pettersson works in a little more than half a year.
Tomorrow I will be heading to Norrköping to attend a performance of Christian Lindberg and the Norrköping SO in Symphony No. 16 and 4, and on 15 November, in my adopted home of Helsinki the Tapiola Sinfonietta will be performing the Concerto for String Orchestra No. 1 under the baton of Jan Söderblom, who himself performed the Symphony No. 7 in Tampere, Finland (I was there too!) back in 2008.
Regarding Norrköping, it looks like I will have a full schedule: dress rehearsal in the morning, followed by Christian Lindberg's press conference on the Pettersson Project 2013-18. There will also be a viewing of Vox Humana, the old Pettersson documentary which will be included as a bonus DVD with the upcoming BIS release of the Symphony No. 9. In the foyer of the concert hall there will be a exhibition of Gunnar Källström's darkly intense black and white photos of Pettersson. Following the concert there are rumors of some kind of party? Throughout the day and evening I look forward to meeting with Pettersson enthusiasts who have come from near and far for this massive event.
Expect to hear my reports on all of these upcoming events and concerts in the coming weeks.
I am a very, very lucky person. I thank everyone who has made this possible!
