Osmo and Erin

ISO Conductor Laureate Osmo Vänskä has been a familiar face in Iceland ever since his tenure as Chief Conductor in 1993-1996. He has been Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra since 2003 and is also active as a clarinettist and composer. In his Overture, which was written during the midst of the pandemic and features a large percussion section, he sets dissonant melodies off against consonant sections. Vänskä wrote the work as a companion piece to Kurt Weill's Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra.

Erin Keefe is first concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra. In this first appearance as soloist with the ISO, she performs the electrifying Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra by Jewish composer Kurt Weill, who fled his native Germany after the Nazis rose to power. Weill is best known for his progressive and captivating theatre music, but he also wrote a number of concert works. In this concerto, he plays with opposites, pitting the solo violinist against the ensemble, which is composed solely of winds and percussion.

The programme closes with Felix Mendelssohn's evocative Symphony no. 3, written in the wake of his travels to Great Britain in 1829. He conceived the idea for the opening theme at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, previously the home of Mary, Queen of Scots.