On tour with chamber orchestra and saxophone
With some of the most beautiful of Norwegian, Russian and Latvian orchestra music on the repertoire, Arkhangelsk State Chamber Orchestra and the Norwegian saxophonist Ola Asdahl Rokkones are ready for a tour through Norway and Russia.
Arkhangelsk State Chamber Orchestra and Ola Asdahl Rokkones have been cooperating for several years. They played together for the first time in 2010 in Arkhangelsk, and have held several concerts together since then.
Rokkones and the orchestra are now ready to play for audiences in Northern Norway, Oslo and St.Petersburg, The tour starts in Svolvær on November 2, continues to Sortland (November 3), Narvik (November 4) Finnsnes (November 5), Tromsø (November 9) and Oslo (November 10 and 11). The concert in St.Petersbug November 13 is the eighth and final concert of the tour, Rokkones says in a press release.
The program includes both Norwegian, Russian and Latvian music. The audience till hear one of the best known works for saxophone and string orchestra through of all time, “Concerto en Mib” by Alexander Glazunov – a work celebrating its 80th anniversary in November this year. The orchestra will play three works alone without saxophone: “Serenade” by Tchaikovsky, “Two Norwegian Melodies” by Grieg, and “Musica Dolorosa” by Vasks. In St.Petersburg Tchaikovsky and Grieg will be replaced by “Chamber Symphony” by Sviridov.
In addition the audience will hear the newly written work “Bør” (“Burden”) by the North-Norwegian composer Torstein Aagaard-Nilsen, written especially for this tour. The work is based on a poem by Stein Mehren, and the result is a poetic musical piece in three movements, where the saxophone gets to show its palette of faint and delicate nuances and timbres.
Ola Asdahl Rokkones is one of few saxophonists who work professionally within both classical music and jazz. He lives in Tromsø and has several times been a soloist with orchestras both in Norway and internationally, most recently in Moscow in March 2014 with the ensemble of Tatjana Grindenko. In 2010 he was selected as Norway’s contribution to the prestigious “European Jazz Orchestra” and in 2012 he was awarded Tromsø Municipality’s Culture Prize.
Vladimir Onufriev is the permanent conductor of Arkhangelsk State Chamber Orchestra. He has visited orchestras throughout Russia, as well as orchestras in the US, Italy and Peru.
Arkhangelsk State Chamber Orchestra became professionalized in 1991, and received status as a state institution in 1993. The orchestra’s foundation consists of 14 string players, but on several occasions it is expanded to a symphonic orchestra. The orchestra has toured in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
