Roots festival: Travelling birds
Anna-Maria Helsing conductor
Sai Giridhar mridangam
Cheng Yu pipa
Eero Hämeenniemi: New work for string orchestra and mridangam
Dun Tan: Concerto for String Orchestra and Pipa or Zheng
Einojuhani Rautavaara: Cantus Arcticus, Concerto for Birds and Orchestra, Op. 61
Please note that there will be no intermission during the concert.
Espoo is home to a growing number of Indian and Chinese residents, who make a significant contribution to the city’s increasingly international atmosphere. Eero Hämeenniemi has had close ties to South India and its Carnatic music since the 1990s. The solo instrument in his new work commissioned by the Tapiola is the mridangam, a versatile double-headed drum, played by Sai Giridhar, one of the masters of the genre. In Tan Dun’s concerto (1999), the solo instrument is the Chinese pipa. In addition to Chinese music, the work explores American minimalism and Bach. In Rautavaara’s Cantus arcticus, old and new Finns journey through the Finnish landscapes of the North.
