Opening Concert

Artistic Director Tine Thing Helseth invites you to a spectacular opening featuring Haydn, Ravel, and others. Welcome to Risør Chamber Music Festival 2026!

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Risør kirke
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Risør kirkes spir
Foto: Liv Øvland

About the concert

We begin in style, and we begin spectacularly: Tine's trumpet entrance and Haydn's Piano Trio No. 43 are worth the price of admission on their own.

But we raise the stakes with a Ravel sonata, Respighi's sunset music, and Nadia Boulanger's Cantique.

The opening concert is the starting shot for the best week of the summer in classical music. Come, and you'll see where we've set the bar for this year's chamber music festival.

Additional Content

The Works in the Concert

Nadia Boulanger: Cantique

Nadia Boulanger: Cantique (1909)

Tine Thing Helseth opens this year's festival in customary fashion. Experience how one of the world's most acclaimed trumpeters, with her utterly unique sound, fills the whole church and sets the tone for the opening concert.

Performers:

  • Tine Thing Helseth, trumpet
  • Isata Kanneh-Mason, piano
Joseph Haydn: Piano Trio No. 43 in C Major

Joseph Haydn: Piano Trio No. 43 in C Major, Hob. XV:27 (1784–85)

  • Allegro
  • Andante
  • Finale: Presto

During this year's festival, we have put Joseph Haydn and his important role in the development of Classical music in the spotlight. This work is one of Haydn's most demanding and virtuosic piano pieces. It was published in 1797 as the first trio in a set of three written for the era's piano prodigy, Therese Jansen Bartolozzi.

Performers:

  • Johan Dalene, violin
  • Victor Julien-Laferrière, cello
  • Håvard Gimse, piano
Synne Skouen: Memento Malin

Synne Skouen: Memento Malin (2018)

Memento Malin is taken from the chamber opera Ballerina, based on a drama by Arne Skouen, with a libretto by Oda Radoor.

Performers:

  • Mari Eriksmoen, soprano
  • Gunnar Flagstad, piano
Frank Bridge: Lament for Two Violas

Frank Bridge: Lament for Two Violas, H.101b (1911–12)

Lament was written in 1912 in the wake of the Titanic tragedy. The work is one of Bridge's most moving compositions: a melancholic dialogue between two equal voices weaving together in grief and beauty.

Performers:

  • Lilli Maijala, viola
  • Eivind Ringstad, viola
Maurice Ravel: From Sonata for Violin and Cello

Maurice Ravel: From Sonata for Violin and Cello in A Minor, M.73 (1920–22)

  • Allegro
  • Très vif

Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Cello is one of his most radical chamber works. Composed as a memorial piece to Debussy, it explores the limits of what two string instruments can create together, from intense dialogues to almost orchestral soundscapes.

Performers:

  • Alena Baeva, violin
  • Victor Julien-Laferrière, cello
Ottorino Respighi: Il Tramonto

Ottorino Respighi: Il Tramonto, "The Sunset" (1914)

Il Tramonto is a "poemetto lirico" (lyric poem) for soprano and string quartet, written in 1914 to a text by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The work is intense, with delicate tone colours and an almost theatrical narrative drive. It is regarded as an early high point in Respighi's vocal music.

Performers:

  • Mari Eriksmoen, soprano
  • Schumann Quartet

Composers

Komponist Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979) was a French teacher, conductor, and composer. She stopped composing after her sister Lili's death in 1918. The first woman to conduct major orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic and Boston Symphony, she taught for seven decades. The most influential composition teacher of the 20th century, her 1,200+ students included Copland, Bernstein, Piazzolla, Philip Glass, and Quincy Jones. Her students became known as the 'Boulangerie.'

Komponist Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) was an Austrian composer who spent 30 years with the Esterházy noble family. A friend of Mozart and teacher of Beethoven, he composed 107 symphonies, 83 string quartets, and the oratorio The Creation. Called "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet," he shaped and consolidated the Classical forms. His foundational role in establishing the symphony and string quartet makes him essential to understanding classical and chamber music. Haydn is this year's composer in focus at Risør Chamber Music Festival.

Komponist Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) was a French composer of Swiss-Basque descent. His final years were clouded by aphasia that prevented him from composing or speaking. A master orchestrator known for superb craftsmanship, he composed Boléro, Daphnis et Chloé, piano concertos, and the famous orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Combining clarity with elements of impressionism, neoclassicism, and jazz, he remains France's most popular composer, influencing Vaughan Williams and de Falla.

Artists