570531bk Arnold US 14/8/07 9:37 am Page 5 Esa Heikkilä 8.570531 The Finnish conductor Esa Heikkilä has been appointed Chief Conductor of the Joensuu City Orchestra (Joensuun British Piano Concertos Kaupunginorkesteri) in Finland from January 2008, adding this appointment to his positions as Artistic Director of DDD Symphony Orchestra Vivo (Finland’s national youth orchestra) and as Senior Lecturer for Orchestra and Chamber Music at the Lahti Polytechnic’s Faculty of Music. He passed his final Sibelius Academy conducting diploma concert in March 2004 with the highest possible mark. He has appeared with the Sinfonia Lahti, the Turku Sir Malcolm Philharmonic, the Tampere Philharmonic and Oulu Philharmonic orchestras, the Jyväskylä Symphony Orchestra, Joensuu City Orchestra, Kymi Sinfonietta, Pori Sinfonietta, Lappeenranta City Orchestra and Mikkeli City Orchestra. He has been invited to conduct nearly all of Finland’s orchestras in concert and recordings, as well as ARNOLD acting as assistant to Leif Segerstam in Germany and Lithuania, Mikko Franck and the Belgian National Orchestra, and Osmo Vänskä with Sinfonia Lahti. Outside Finland he has conducted the Haapsalu Festival Orchestra in Estonia for two years and made successful débuts with the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast in October 2004, the Iceland Concerto for Two Pianos (Three Hands) Symphony Orchestra in February 2005 and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders in March 2005. He was immediately re-invited to the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra after making his début with them in February 2006, by the BBC in Northern Ireland after a first engagement there in January 2007, and he returns to Iceland for Concerto for Piano Duet a third time in October 2007. He has conducted Sinfonia Lahti in symphonies by Shostakovich and Holst’s The Planets in 2005 and 2006. One of the remarkable aspects of Esa Heikkilä’s career has been his acceptance as a Phillip Dyson and Kevin Sargent, Pianos mature student into Leif Segerstam’s conducting class at the Sibelius Academy, having earlier started his conducting studies with Osmo Vänskä. Born in 1962, his outstanding talent as a conductor had already been recognised in Finland when he began the course in 2001 at the age of 37. He had earlier begun his musical career as a violinist in Ulster Orchestra • Esa Heikkilä the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, followed by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, before becoming leader of the second violin section in Sinfonia Lahti. He has performed as a soloist with several Finnish orchestras and has frequently played as a chamber musician at many festivals in Finland, also making chamber music recordings for the BIS label amongst others. Esa Heikkilä has been in the foreground during Sinfonia Lahti’s meteoric and well- deserved rise during the last ten years, using his position in the orchestra to study Osmo Vänskä and the other front- rank conductors attracted there by its growing reputation. It is no surprise that his conducting repertoire reflects that of the orchestra, with an emphasis on the music of Sibelius and many other Nordic composers, ranging from 8.557291 Rautavaara, Sallinen, Aho and Pärt to Englund, Klami and Alfvén, through the Russian school of composers to a core orchestral repertoire that also encompasses choral, opera and ballet scores. 8.570406 8.570531 5 6 8.570531 570531bk Arnold US 14/8/07 9:37 am Page 2 Sir Malcolm Arnold (1921–2006) a set of nine variations over a repeated phrase (in this its style unashamedly popular. Arnold had stood firm, he Phillip Dyson Concerto for Two Pianos • Concerto for Piano Duet case a simple falling phrase first heard in the violas). was always his own man. Phillip Dyson is recognised as one of Britain’s most sought after and innovative concert pianists. He has gained The sections build in complexity culminating in an By the mid-seventies when Arnold wrote the John enormous popularity for his unique abilities in both the classical and light music repertoire. His rapport with In 1943 Malcolm Arnold was at the height of his career written two years later. Thus it is no surprise to find a almost jazz-like like variation. Along the way is a most Field Fantasy, his personal life was becoming audiences, brilliant technique and innate sensitivity constantly win him the highest of praise. He often broadcasts on as an orchestral player. But, as principal trumpet in the number of works for piano and orchestra among his remarkable feature, an extraordinarily manic scale increasingly unstable. The family had moved to Dublin, the BBC and Classic FM, performs regularly with leading orchestras and has a great international reputation in London Philharmonic Orchestra with a punishing large output, (though no dedicated ‘Piano Concerto’). passage for the strings; here is a little of that Arnold but his second wife was soon to leave him and he was to Europe and America. Born in Lancashire, Phillip Dyson began musical studies at an early stage and by the age of schedule of wartime concerts almost every day in His eighteen concertos were all written for friends and inner turmoil as he battles with his manic depressive make a serious suicide attempt. All this highly charged twelve had given a performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall, which launched a busy and successful performing different parts of the country and a history of mental each demonstrates his exemplary understanding of the psychosis. There is also music that clearly anticipates his emotion did manage to manifest itself, however, in some career. He studied at the Royal College of Music with Colin Horsley and John Lill, and also with William Lloyd instability, his fragile psychological state was being soloist’s capabilities – both musically and technically. score for the Sound Barrier, which was to be written just of Arnold’s most devastating music. The Seventh Webber. At the age of 27 he was appointed Professor of Piano at the London College of Music. He has appeared at tested to its limit. Indeed so severe was the problem that As with all Arnold’s work, there is always a subtext, be a few months later. The finale is a rhythmic tour de force Symphony, the Second String Quartet and Second major festivals throughout Britain and most frequently appears in London, including the South Bank Centre and St he was to suffer a breakdown. Recovery took place in it a reflection of his personal condition, a comment on that mostly bustles along with relentless high spirits, but Clarinet Concerto all date from this time. There are John’s, Smith Square. He tours overseas every year, particularly in the United States and Europe. He is often invited Cornwall and in the family cottage at Capel Garmon in some contemporary issue, or a warm-hearted picture of also includes one of those delicious Arnoldian bitter- several reasons which attracted Arnold to using a to the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival and was the first British pianist to appear at the West Coast Wales. There he wrote his Overture Beckus the the dedicatee. sweet melodies in the middle section before the nocturne (the Nocturne in C major) by the Irish Ragtime Festival. In addition, he tours California each year, particularly in San Francisco, Sacramento, San Luis Dandipratt. In later life Arnold was to declare that its The Concerto for Piano Duet and Strings was exuberant final pages re-assert energy and virtuosity. composer and pianist John Field. A Dubliner by birth, Obispo and Los Angeles. In addition, he has toured in Canada as soloist with the Palm Court Orchestra of writing was a kind of therapy, “I had been very composed in the early months of 1951. This was a The Concerto for Two Pianos (Three Hands) and Field was also an alcoholic and went through a long Vancouver. As a leading exponent of British music, in the concert hall, on CD and for the BBC, Phillip Dyson has depressed and I think it saved my life”. The work, period of almost frenzied work. Arnold had recently Orchestra was composed in 1969. It was a surprising period of public neglect, but, above all, it was for Arnold long had the music of Sir Malcolm Arnold in his repertoire. He gave the Irish première and first performance outside written in sonata form, is often misleadingly described completed his highly successful first set of English Prom commission coming at a time when the prevailing a reconnection with his mother who had loved the Field the United Kingdom of Arnold’s Fantasy on a theme of John Field, broadcast live from the National Concert Hall, as a comedy overture. Despite the lively beginning and Dances and the enduring sonatinas for clarinet and oboe tastes of the BBC were directed more towards the avant- Nocturnes. As a little boy the young composer had learnt Dublin, in celebration of the composer’s eightieth birthday. His performances of the Fantasy were warmly praised regular outbreaks of high spirits there are also, as so as well as music for nine documentary films and four garde than the tonality and conservatism of composers one by heart. The Fantasy was written without by the composer, who described his interpretation of the work as so sympathetic and so exactly what he had in mind often in Arnold’s music, passages of darkness and feature films. It was also a period of some mental like Malcolm Arnold. Originally entitled Concerto for commission, purely because he felt the need, but it was when he wrote the piece that it was quite uncanny: ‘of all the distinguished pianists who have performed the turmoil. The music at one point becomes almost totally instability – he had just spent three and a half months Phyllis and Cyril it was written for the legendary three- inspired by the playing of John Lill.