Past event

12 May 2023

Sala Teatro

20:30

Orchestre de Paris
Klaus Mäkelä, conductor
Beatrice Rana, piano

Sergei Rachmaninov
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 43

Dmitri Shostakovich
Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60 Leningrad

Throughout the short and explosive career of Klaus Mäkelä – a Finnish conductor and cellist born in 1996 – the same script seems to repeat. The debut with a new orchestra is followed in no time by a proposal for a stable collaboration, almost as if the musicians are bewitched by Mäkelä's minimal but highly effective gesture.

This happened for the first time in 2017 with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, which appointed him the youngest principal guest conductor in its history, just two months after the concert. And again in 2018 with the Oslo Philharmonic, which wanted him as Chief Conductor, and in 2019 with the Orchestre de Paris, which appointed him Music Director. Combining the direction of two orchestras as different as the Oslo Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris is not a burden for Mäkelä but an asset. “When Paris offered the job, I thought it would be the perfect thing to do. And then, of course, Corona came, which, in the event, made me realise even more that this is exactly the right thing to do – it's much more sustainable, artistically, to focus on two orchestras with a totally different profile and totally different repertoire. To work with both these orchestras, which both play on such a wonderful high level, is a real pleasure”, he said in an interview with Bachtrack.

Italian pianist Beatrice Rana is no different. Intelligent virtuosity and marked sensitivity have made her, at only 29, one of the most sought-after performers in concert halls worldwide. Her interpretations of the repertoire's fundamental works – such as Chopin's Etudes and Bach's Goldberg Variations – have already entered the pantheon of reference recordings alongside those of much more mature performers.

From virtuoso to virtuoso, Beatrice Rana is the spokesperson for Sergei Rachmaninov's homage to Niccolò Paganini, whose Capriccio No. 24 in A minor serves as the theme for the twenty-four variations of the Russian's Rhapsody for piano and orchestra. A monumental piano feat that Rana will be able to render with the clarity of vision that distinguishes her.