Music Task: The Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra

On Saturday 24^th of October I went to a concert of the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra at the Snellman hall in Kokkola. 

The Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1989 by Juha Kangas which was the conductor of the Central Ostrobothnian Music Institute. Since its beginning, the orchestra has been on tours in European countries, Japan and the United States. New generation of conductors have succeeded to Juha Kangas since then and in the autumn 2013, Sakari Oramo took over as Artistic Director.

The show I went to was conducted by Antti Tikkanen, who wasn’t only conducting it but also playing violin along the other musicians. The musicians were only playing violin, strings and one man was doing the percussion. They started by playing music written by Sibelius (Finnish composer), than music written by Pärt (Estonian composer) and also written by Atterberg (Swedish composer).

Jean Sibelius was a famous Finnish violinist and composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He lived during the 19^th and 20^th centuries. His work is still played by a lot of orchestra especially in Finland and one of its best-known compositions is Finlandia.

I had never been to a classical music show before and I can say that I wasn’t disappointed. I wanted to experience it once and with the help of this task I took the chance to do it. The atmosphere was really nice and relaxing. I think I can say that I was one of the youngest people in the audience but it wasn’t a bad thing at all. I was really impressed by the fact that the music can transport you in another place. At some moment I was just closing my eyes to enjoy the violin and forget about where I was. I really enjoyed the concert; it was a first for me but for sure not the last classic concert I will go to.