Travelling in the Solar System

Orbits are at the heart of the evening’s space-inspired program. It begins with acclaimed New York composer Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres), an exciting, barely ten-minute piece that takes place in the various orbits of the solar system. Here, baroque style figures meet the future in a twisted soundscape with breathtakingly imaginary sci-fi effects.

We then follow the sun’s journey across the sky in 96-year-old Thea Musgraves’ oboe concerto Helios. Musgraves’ penchant for telling a story by musical means manifests itself again in this twenty-minute long, sensually dramatic work. In Greek mythology, Helios travels across the sky in his burning chariot before sinking into the realm of evening to travel back with the ocean currents to his golden palace in the east during the night. A process that the orchestra in conversation with the eminent German oboe soloist Juri Vallentin in the “role” that Helios refinedly portrays.

After the intermission, the orchestra plays Schuman’s life-affirming and green-flowering “Spring Symphony”. A perfect way to return down to earth and the earthly. On the desk we find Norrlandsoperan’s own Eduardo Strausser.