Shostakovich & Prokofiev

Honorary Conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Osmo Vänskä, welcomes Dutch violinist Liza Ferschtman, who in recent years has had a very successful career as a soloist with many of the world's leading orchestras. Liza performs Dmitri Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto, a complex and elegant composition filled with moving conflict and tension. The concerto was composed in 1947–48 in the shadow of persecution against the composer and was not premiered until several years after Stalin's death. Sergei Prokofiev's Sixth Symphony was composed at the same time as Shostakovich's Violin Concerto and is considered by many to be the crown jewel of the master's seven symphonies. A powerful and mysterious work that the composer said was written in memory of the victims of the German war of aggression. Before the drama of the Soviet era takes over, it is the orchestra's pleasure to premiere a new work by María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, who has garnered well-deserved attention for her compositions in recent years.