Festival Program

After the success in 2023, The Story of a City returns. For those who missed it, or those who want to see it again!
A personally created performance where the history of Gothenburg is described through text and music from various eras.
The well-known Ayla Kabaca (Bolibompa, etc.) vividly tells the story of the people who have built, influenced, or impacted the city of Gothenburg: Dutch, Scots, English, West Goths, Turks, Bohuslänners, Chinese, Norwegians – yes, people from near and far, children and the elderly, women and men, short and tall, happy and angry. Gothenburg Combo enhances all impressions with music that tells of the city’s diverse history: Dutch 17th-century music by the flutist Jacob van Eyck, Scottish songs from the 1700s in the Italian version of Barsanti, music by Elfrida André, Bedrich Smetana, Carl Michael Bellman, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Dietrich Buxtehude, Isaac Albéniz, Evert Taube, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Giacchino Rossini, and Håkan Hellström, American folk music and Steve Reich with connections to the great American ships, traditional Chinese music that the East Indiamen may have heard on their journeys in the 1700s, and Spanish music they heard during their stopover in Cadiz, where they traded for silver.

Get to know the award-winning composer Jonatan Sersam, who talks about his new work Rain, Heart, Hammer for clarinet, violin, viola, and cello, which will be premiered at the final concert. A commissioned work by Sveriges Radio.

Benjamin Britten (*1913 †1976) Folk songs for tenor and piano                                    

Jonatan Sersam (*1986) 
Rain – Heart – Hammer for clarinet, violin, viola, cello
Premiere performance
Commissioned by Swedish Radio

// Intermission //

Jean Sibelius (*1865 †1957) Four Pieces for violin and piano Op. 115

Benjamin Britten (*1913 †1976) Lyrics: Edith Sitwell (*1887 †1964)  
Canticle III: Still falls the rain Op.55 for tenor, horn, piano      

// Intermission //

Ludwig van Beethoven (*1770 †1827) Septet E flat major op 20 for clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, cello, double bass

Rosali Grankull (*1984) Music for strings & silk

Silk as a material requires patience as its properties are both strong and fragile and the participants will get to know the silk through the workshop and get to physically experience what happens when the threads are connected with stringed instruments. The collective work is part of the core of the work: co-operation and listening. Once the installation is complete, the workshop moves into the next phase where the participants and Rosali work on collective improvisation using the installation and a few sound objects placed in the room. The workshop wants to engage the participants and open doors to experiment with a few materials.

Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (*1665 †1729) Sonata II
Antonio Vivald (*1678 †1741) Concerto in G minor, RV 157
Isabella Leonarda (*1620 †1704) Sonata I
Jean-Féry Rebel (*1666 †1747) Les caractères de la danse  
John Dowland (*1563 †1626) Flow my tears
Georg Friedrich Händel (*1685 †1759), Un momento, from the opera seria Alcina

Olivier Messiaen (*1908 †1992) **Appel interstellaire from Des Canyons aux Etoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars) for solo horn

Massimiliano Matesic (*1969) Il silenzio delle sirene for Bassoon and Piano

Carl Nielsen (*1865 †1931) In vano for Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, Cello, Double Bass

// Intermission//

Franz Schubert (*1797 †1828) Trout Quintet in A Major, Op 114

** “From the canyons to the stars… This means rising from the depths of the canyons up to the stars – and even higher up to the resurrected of paradise – to praise God and the fullness of his creations: the beauties of the earth (its rocks, its birdsongs), the beauties of the visible sky, the beauties of the spiritual sky.”
– Olivier Messiaen: Preface to the score of Des Canyons aux étoiles …