10 NOVEMBER Helsinki Music Centre at 7 pm

THE END-OF-THE-WORLD SUSHI BAR – ISMO ALANKO AND THE FRSO Susanna Mälkki, conductor Ismo Alanko, vocals

The music and lyrics of all the songs are by Ismo Alanko. The arrangements are, with the exception of Risteys, Yle commissions and will now be heard for the first time.

Overture soloist: Mikko Ivars, cello arr. Olli Virtaperko

Muoviruusuja omenapuissa – Harsoinen teräs arr. Osmo Tapio Räihälä

Rauhallista arr. Markus Fagerudd

Rakkaudesta arr. Juhani Nuorvala

Meidän isä arr. Tapani Länsiö

Kun Suomi putos puusta arr. Timo Hietala

Hetki hautausmalla

INTERVAL 20 min

1 Kurjet Päivän uutinen arr. Lotta Wennäkoski

Risteys arr. Arttu Takalo

Kullankaivajat Kuka puhuu arr. Kirmo Lintinen

Taivaan tulet arr. Markus Fagerudd

Hullun paperit arr. Kimmo Hakola

Maailmanlopun sushibaari arr. Timo Hietala

Interval at about 8 pm. The concert ends at about 9.30 pm. Broadcast live on the Internet yle.fi/rso and yle.fi/musiikki. The concert will be televised and shown on Yle Teema on 6 January 2013.

2 A VISIT TO THE END- on the go, that never stopped to rest on its laurels even when it had disco- OF-THE-WORLD SUSHI vered the key to success. Artistically, BAR its evolution over the years was most impressive. Initially a frenetic embodi- The mark made by Ismo Alanko on ment of pure art-punk-trance energy, it Finnish music is hard to overestima- grew into a popular line-up chomping te. His compositions range from easy- furiously at the sound aesthetics of the listening pieces to ambitious opuses, 1980s and ended with a sort of ethno- and many of those that may on first punk hippie burst before it disbanded. hearing sound simple are in fact surpri- In 1990 Alanko released one of the fi- singly complex and ground-breaking. nest discs of his career. Kun Suomi putos Lyrically, Alanko has a pinch of the puusta (When Finland Fell out of the fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear, in ot- Tree) coincided with a major turning her words an ability to disarm people point in Finnish society and the disc with larky or gallows humour. But he is like a crossover recession cabaret in can also be deadly serious and moving. which the singer, like a circus ring mas- Especially when writing about such ter, tries to look ahead at the European difficult topics as love or death, when Finland of the future. The title track he often succeeds in avoiding all the has subsequently been borrowed to fit cliché pitfalls and striking right to the all kinds of circumstances and events very heart of humanity. in Finland. Starting out with the cello, Ismo took Alanko has also had an active solo ca- up the electric and began wri- reer. Taiteilijaelämä (1995), both the al- ting pieces of his own in his teens. He bum and the song by that name, were finally hit the national limelight when great hits, but he was still not content Hassisen Kone won the new wave pri- to leave things at that. He has recorded ze in the Finnish Rock Championships. under many names: Ismo Alanko, Ismo It was for Hassisen Kone that he wro- Alanko Säätiö, Ismo Alanko Teholla, te the first pieces to become perma- each with its own sound and heeding nently engraved on the Finnish sub- its own principles. His desire for expe- conscious, the best-known of which is riment shows no signs of waning, and possibly Rappiolla. Harsoinen teräs was he has further expanded into theatre in the band’s first real masterpiece , recent years. released when he was 22. An even bigger impact on Finnish Arttu Tolonen (abridged) music than Hassisen Kone was made by Alanko’s next big project: , which released its debut album in 1983 and was a world-class band by any standard, both live and in the stu- dio. It was also a restless band, always

3 SUSANNA MÄLKKI Adès’s Powder Her Face, Morton Feldman’s Neither in Copenhagen and Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de loin and Susanna Mälkki’s versatility and broad Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier at repertoire have taken her to sympho- the Finnish National Opera. ny orchestras, chamber orchestras, Susanna Mälkki was elected a Fellow contemporary music ensembles and of the Royal Academy of Music, opera houses around the world. She London, in June 2010. is currently Music Director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, having been Artistic Director of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra until late 2005. A former student at the Sibelius THE FINNISH RADIO Academy, Susanna Mälkki studied SYMPHONY with Jorma Panula, Eri Klas and Leif Segerstam. Prior to her conducting ORCHESTRA studies, she had a successful career as a cellist and from 1995 to1998 was one The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra of the principals of the Gothenburg (FRSO) is the orchestra of the Finnish Symphony Orchestra in Sweden. Broadcasting Company (yle). Its missi- In recent seasons Susanna Mälkki on is to produce and promote Finnish has conducted many prestigious or- musical culture. Its Chief Conductor as chestras, including the Berlin and Los of autumn 2013 will be Hannu Lintu, Angeles Philharmonics, the Chicago, following a season (2012/2013) as the Boston and San Francisco Symphonies, orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor. the Amsterdam Concertgebouw The FRSO has two Honorary Orchestra, the Philharmonia and the Conductors: Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Vienna Symphony. Engagements Sakari Oramo. this season include appearances with The Radio Orchestra of ten players the Netherlands Radio Symphony founded in 1927 grew to symphony or- Orchestra and the Los Angeles chestra strength in the 1960s. Its pre- Philharmonic. vious Chief Conductors have been In April 2011 Susanna Mälkki was Toivo Haapanen, Nils-Eric Fougstedt, the first woman to conduct an opera Paavo Berglund, Okko Kamu, Leif at La Scala, Milan. Her debut was fol- Segerstam, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and lowed by an immediate re-invitation. Sakari Oramo. In 2010 she conducted the premiere of The latest contemporary music is Bruno Mantovani’s ballet at the Opéra a major item in the repertoire of the National de Paris and she returns there FRSO, which each year premieres a to conduct two other productions in the number of yle commissions. Another 2013/2014 season. Other operas con- of the orchestra’s tasks is to record all ducted by her have included Thomas Finnish orchestral music for the yle ar-

4 chive. During the 2012/2013 season it will premiere six works commissioned by yle. The FRSO has recorded works by Eötvös, Nielsen, Hakola, Lindberg, Saariaho, Sallinen, Kaipainen, Kokkonen and others, and the debut disc of the opera Aslak Hetta by Armas Launis. Its discs have reaped some major distinc- tions, such as the BBC Music Magazine Award and the Académie Charles Cros Award. The disc of the Sibelius and Lindberg Concertos (Sony BMG) with Lisa Batiashvili as the soloist re- ceived the MIDEM Classical Award in 2008, in which year the New York Times chose the other Lindberg disc as its Record of the Year. The FRSO regularly tours to all parts of the world. During the 2012/2013 season it will be heading for Eastern Finland and Southern Europe. All the FRSO concerts both in Finland and abroad are broadcast, usually live, on yle Radio 1. They can also be heard and watched with excellent live stream quality on the FRSO website (yle.fi/rso).

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