Lahti Organ Festival: UMORGAN

The UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra timbre gets a rare tone of a larger-scale wind instrument, as organist Susanne Kujala joins the big band for this unique concert. The concert offers a stylish combination of the musical worlds of jazz and classical music, including a Markus Fagerudd premiere, some symphonic Ellington and an organ concerto composed by Örjan Fahlström. The conductor of the concert is Kirmo Lintinen. 

Gandai is Lithuanian and means a rumour or hear-say. It is also the title of a new composition by Markus Fagerudd, premiering in this concert. Gandai got its first impulse when Fagerudd visited the Jewish Museum in Vilnius and got to know the work of a holocaust-surviving artist Samuel Bak (1933), especially his ink drawing going by the same name Gandai. In the concert, the orchestra is divided into five groups around the concert hall. The music plays, travels, and spreads like a rumour from group to another, kinesthetically wandering, being an instrument in itself. This composition has been supported by the Sibelius Fund by the Society of Finnish Composers.

A Tone Parallel to Harlem, also known as Harlem Suite, is Duke Ellington’s iconic depiction of a certain neighbourhood and the cornerstone of symphonic jazz, composed in the beginning of the 1950s. The through-composed and multipart tone poem is an airy synthesis of classical music and jazz.

Animations is a five-piece concerto for the organ and the big band by Örjan Fahlström. Written for organist Hans-Ola Ericsson and Norrbotten Big Band in 1992, the energy and the liveliness of the piece beautifully highlight the coming together of these different musical worlds and visions.

Markus Fagerudd: Concerto for organ and big band  ’Gandai’ (premiere, 24’)
Susanne Kujala, organ
UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra 

Duke Ellington: A Tone Parallel to Harlem (14’)
UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra

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Örjan Fahlström: Concerto for organ and big band ’Animations’ (32’)
I. Prolog / Moderato
II. Elegi
III. Scherzo
IV. Chorale
V. Fugue
Susanne Kujala, organ
UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra 

www.lahtiorgan.fi

Duration: ca. 2 hours, includes intermission.

Produced by Lahti Organ Festival