Göteborgs Konserthus University of Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

Agathe Backer-Gröndahl (1847-1907) Four Songs (lyric: Zacharias Topelius) Selma's thoughts in the spring The bird's song Larch voices in May The tale of the birch "There is no greater joy than composing, of creating something truly beautiful!" Those are the words of Agathe Backer-Gröndahl, but her piano teacher back home in Norway believed that a woman should wear musicality as a piece of jewelry. To live a professional life in the service of music was a violation of convention. Yet she defied parents, societal norms, and teachers. The small-minded the piano teacher was replaced by Franz Liszt, with whom she studied in Weimar, and success came: Backer-Gröndahl became the concert pianist preferred by colleague Edvard Grieg as soloist in his piano concerto, and the critic George Bernhard Shaw called her the greatest piano artist of the century. As a composer for voice and piano, she is considered one of Norway's foremost. There were about 150 romances and 250 piano pieces during her short life, which also included four children and failing health. The songs with text by Zacharias Topelius are monologues where people's destinies are reflected in nature. The flowers yearn, the waves mourn, the birch tells love secrets in a whole mini-opera. The leaves tremble in the piano while the young people carve their names in the bark and then accidentally kiss each other. Katarina A Karlsson

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) Rückert-Lieder Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder Ich atmet' einen linden Scent Um Mitternacht hab' ich gewacht Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen Liebst du um Schönheit Gustav Mahler is a man of contrasts. At the same time as he wrote the most magnificent and revolutionary symphonies of the time, he also wrote tender and sometimes folksy songs. His "Rückert Lieder" is not a song cycle (although they were published together), but five independent songs composed between early summer 1901 and late summer 1902 to texts by Friedrich Rückert. Rückert was not a professional poet but a professor of oriental languages, who, in the grief of having lost two of his children at an early age, sought solace in writing poetry. He dedicated no less than 448 poems to Ernst and Luise, who died of scarlet fever! Mahler was fascinated and at the same time used his poems also for the collection Kindertotenlieder, and as in the evening also other of his poems that are not primarily about children. In the first poem "Do not look at my songs" the poet seeks solitude and in "I breathed a delicate fragrance" we meet memories of the happy years of the past. In "At midnight" he seeks, after many torments, confidence in God. In "If you love for beauty" she is asked to love me for love's sake, not for beauty, youth or wealth. It has been said that this is Mahler's only true love song - and it is dedicated to Alma Schindler, that is, his future wife. In "I am lost to the world" he sees himself dead to the outside world, alone he lives in heaven in his love, in his songs. The latter was not orchestrated by Mahler himself, but by Max Puttmann, who was employed by the publisher that published the songs in print. Many of the songs end in a different key than the one they began in, as so often with Mahler. Stig Jacobsson

Bela Bartók (1881-1945) Concerto for Orchestra Introduzione Gioco delle coppie Elegia Intermezzo interrotto Finale When this music was written in 1943, Bela Bartók had two years left to live. He had come to the United States fleeing a Europe at war and clawed his way through a few lean years in New York. The honorary doctorate at Harvard provided no income. In addition, he became increasingly ill, what previously appeared to be tuberculosis turned out to be leukemia. But he continued to compose as always. Work was his life - and pleasure too, if you will. Like a child, he rested by doing other things. He was first and foremost a music ethnologist, that is, a recorder and collector of folk music. And it was among other things this immeasurable library, more than 13,000 melodies, he was so keen to save the Second World War. Countless trips in Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Turkey were made with a phonograph as a memory aid. In between, he composed, on top of that a whole lot of teaching as income and change, and of course an extensive activity as a concert pianist in many countries. In addition, he was interested in collecting plants, beetles, learning new languages. Palestrina's music was always on the piano and he never traveled without his thumbed score of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring under his arm. Is there a diagnosis for this? we would ask today. The music Bela Bartók wrote was highly influenced by all the music he saw and heard on his collecting trips, but in the later works you can also hear how fascinated he was by the Baroque masters. The concerto for orchestra was commissioned by the Sergei Koussevitsky Music Foundation. Bartók himself has described the music as a journey from austerity via an ominous song to a life-affirming ending. Like Mozart, he composed incredibly quickly, he couldn't get an idea out of his head until the next one appeared. With such a cacophony within, it is no wonder that throughout his life he sought out quiet places. Bartok himself saw the collection of folk music as his greatest and most important deed for more than one reason: "My own idea is the brotherhood of peoples, brotherhood despite all wars and conflicts. I try - as best I can - to serve that idea in my music: therefore I reject no influences, whether Slovak, Romanian, Arabic, or from other sources." (Bartók, 1931) KATARINA A KARLSSON

The core of the orchestra is students of the two-year international master's program in symphonic orchestra playing at the Gothenburg University. The training is unique in its kind and is conducted in collaboration with the Gothenburg Symphony and the Gothenburg Opera. The orchestra projects also include students from the bachelor's program in classical music, a three-year program where the students focuses on chamber music playing and individual development on their instrument. Sometimes students from other music colleges are invited to participate and complement the orchestra. Each academic year, the University of Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra performs several orchestral productions and public concerts. Internationally well-known conductors and soloists are engaged for these. Recently, Anja Bihlmaier, Eva Ollikainen, ShaoChia Lü, Olaf Henzold, Patrik Ringborg, Tobias Ringborg, Michel Tabachnik and Steven Sloane have been guests of the orchestra. Among the soloists are pianists Roland Pöntinen and Christian Zacharias, violinists Malin Broman and Antje Weithaas, trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth and singer Kristina Hansson. The orchestra also collaborates every year with the opera education at the University of Stage and Music. The University of Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra is an ambassador for the University, supporting the concert and tour activities.

Henrik Schaefer is musical director and chief conductor of Folkoperan in Stockholm. The Bochum-born musician began his conducting career as an assistant to Claudio Abbado and was musical director of the Gothenburg Opera Orchestra from 2013-2020. Among other things, he has conducted successful productions of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, Strauss' Daphne, Thomas' Hamlet and Madame Butterfly. His commitment to unknown romantic repertoire is shown in concerts, opera productions and first recordings of rediscovered works by composers such as Elfrida Andrée, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Joachim Raff and August Klughardt. In 2004-2011 Henrik Schaefer was first guest conductor of the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, and 2007-2013 chief conductor of Wermland Opera in Karlstad. In recent years he has been active as Artistic Director of the Master study programme of Orchestra Performance at Gothenburg University.

Ann-Kristin Jones has studied at the Conservatory of Music in Falun, the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo and the Opera Academy in Copenhagen, as well as taking the diploma course at the Royal Danish Music Conservatory. She made her debut during her studies in the title role in Handel's Orlando at Den Ny Opera in Esbjerg. Since then, she has performed roles such as the Third Lady in The Magic Flute, Cherubin in The Marriage of Figaro, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Siébel in Faust, Olga in Eugen Onegin and Giovanna in Anna Bolena on stages such as Malmö Opera, Drottningholm's Castle Theatre, Opera in Kristiansund, Opera in Ystad and the Royal Opera in Stockholm. At the Gothenburg Opera, Ann-Kristin Jones has sung Sesto and Bradamante in Julius Caesar, Alcina and Maffio Orsini in Lucrezia Borgia, Tisbe in Cinderella, Kate in Madame Butterfly, Gertrude in Hamlet, Mercédès in Carmen, La Ciesca in Gianni Schicchi, the Composer in Ariadne on Naxos, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, Mother in The Monster in the Labyrinth, Flosshilde in The Rhine Gold and Götterdämmerung, Rossweisse in Die Walküre, Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana and Carlotta in Die schweigsame Frau. Ann-Kristin Jones has also toured Japan with the Gothenburg Opera's orchestra. In 2022, she sang Adalgisa in the critically acclaimed production of Norma at Folkoperan. In autumn 2023, she played the role of Rita in the premiere of the newly written opera Mytomania. Furthermore, Ann-Kristin Jones is active as a soloist in concert and oratorio contexts around the Nordic region. In 2007, she was a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Disney Concert Hall in a work by John Adams, conducted by the composer himself. Jones has been awarded a number of scholarships such as the Björling Scholarship 2023, the Friends of the Drottningholm Theater, Sten A Olsson's Cultural Scholarship and several of the Royal Academy of Music's major foreign scholarships.