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24.7.2025 | Culture

Vanemuine Summer Concert

Text Stewart Johnson

Photo Heikki Leis / City of Tartu

Vanemuine Summer Concert

 

For 15 years running, the Vanemuine Theatre in Tartu has held an outdoor concert featuring their symphonic orchestra. This year again, it will be held in Kassitoome, a unique valley in Toomemägi Park, the beautiful downtown park surrounding the medieval cathedral. The concert is free for all, but it is advised to arrive early to find a comfortable seat, or place to stand.

Music composed by Leonard Bernstein, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Max Bruch, Bedřich Smetana, Salvatore Cardillo, Edward Elgar, Giuseppe Verdi, Georges Bizet, David Popper, Johannes Brahms, Agustín Lara, and Estonians Eino Tamberg and Raimond Valgre will be performed.

Soloists Riccardo della Sciucca, Kadi Jürgens, Brett Pruunsild, Federico Mechelli Uhl, Mari Ellen Lutsar, and Helin Pihlap will be featured, accompanied by the Vanemuine Symphony Orchestra. conducted by Risto Joost, and hosted by Veiko Porkanen.

The Vanemuine Theatre is Estonia’s oldest, founded in 1870. Toomemägi Park is where Tartu itself finds its beginnings, with a fortification dating back to the 7th century. Later a bishop’s castle and cathedral were built in the Middle Ages, which today exist as partially restored ruins, and a fully restored museum section.

Kassitoome Valley is the site of the first Song Festival, in 1869, and legend has it that the valley is in fact a quarry that was used to create the adjacent cathedral.

More information about the Vanemuine Summer Symphonic Orchestra Concert is available here.

 

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