Estonian Music Days 100 Begins This Weekend

Text Stewart Johnson

Photo Andrei Chertkov

This year’s Estonian Music Days festival celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Estonian Composers Union. The festival and the selection of music will highlight the difficulties Estonia has overcome in the past century, by focusing on Estonian composers whose work has had a significant influence in music and society during this time.

Concerts will be held in ten venues in Tallinn and Tartu, as well as the Arvo Pärt Centre in Laulasmaa. The festival itself will kick off with a concert by the full Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ERSO), conducted by Germany’s very own Michael Wendeberg, on Friday, 25 April in the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn.

The first half of this opening concert by ERSO will feature new, original works by Mari Vihmand, Tatjana Kozlova-Johannes, Rasmus Puur, Timo Steiner, and Märt-Matis Lill. Each composition in the first half is dedicated to a teacher or inspirational figure of the composer. The second half of the concert will be Artur Lemba’s “Symphony No. 1”, the first symphony ever composed by an Estonian.

The following concert, on 26 April, will be at the Arvo Pärt Centre, and of course will feature music by many other Estonian composers, including Arvo Pärt himself. For those who don’t know, Pärt has been recognised around the world as the most important living composer.

Overall, the festival will feature ten consecutive days of symphonic concerts (sometimes two concerts in one evening) in various venues in Tallinn, Tartu, and Laulasmaa. More information about the entire programme is available here, and tickets to each individual event can be purchased here.

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Concert Concerts in Estonia ERSO Estonian Music Days Estonian National Symphony Orchestra Events in Tallinn Events In Tartu symphony