The Oslo Philharmonic

Oslo Konserthus, entr. Johan Svendsens plass, Oslo, Oslo

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One of the best orchestras in Europe, with regular performances in Oslo Concert Hall when not touring in Norway and abroad.

The orchestra has a vast repertoire and often features world-famous soloists and conductors. Right before most of the concerts, the programme is presented in “Behind the Notes” in Glasshuset in Oslo Concert Hall.  

Last updated: 01/01/2024

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Oslo Philharmonic

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  • Biography English

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In August 2020 the orchestra launched its 101 st season with new Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor, Klaus Mäkela , whose close rapport with the musicians was immediately evident at his Oslo debut two years previously. For their first project together, they recorded the complete Sibelius cycle, released on Decca Classics to international acclaim. The BBC Music Magazine named it Recording of the Month and described the album as an ​ “ electrifying triumph” and Finland’s Helsingen Sanomat wrote ​ “ The sense of alertness of the Oslo Philharmonic’s collaboration with Mäkelä is powerful. One can sense that many great moments have been born of this trust, shared and unforced.”

During the pandemic the orchestra also quickly intensified its digital commitment with the online concert series Mellomspill (Interlude). This led to a tremendous success on both Youtube and social media, and resulted in an important archive of performances with Klaus Mäkelä and guest artists, which received the Norwegian Audience Development Innovation Award for  2021 .

During May and June 2022 the Oslo Philharmonic and Klaus Mäkelä gave their first international concerts together, including Sibelius cycle residencies at the Vienna Konzerthaus and Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and further performances in both Paris and London, at the Barbican. They received glorious reviews, and the Oslo Philharmonic was nominated for the Gramophone Orchestra of the Year Award.

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The 2022 / 23 season started with two concerts in Oslo and at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall in London, both with chief conductor Klaus Mäkelä and piano soloist Yuja Wang. The season includes concerts with many top conductors and soloists, and in November the Oslo Phil will play concerts in Hamburg, München, Antwerpen, Dortmund and Wien with Klaus Mäkelä and celloist Sol Gabetta . 

On September 27 , 1919 , the Orchestra of the Philharmonic Company – later to be known as the Oslo Philharmonic − took to the stage for its first public concert. The creation of an independent symphony orchestra in the city was a major event and among the prominent guests at the opening concert were King Haakon VII and Queen Maud. 

The Oslo Philharmonic quickly became a powerhouse in the capital’s music scene, attracting both international stars and a large local audience. In 1921 , Jean Sibelius conducted a series of concerts with his own works, and the same year, the chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, Arthur Nikisch, conducted a series of concerts with all of Beethoven’s symphonies. 

In the century to follow, the Oslo Philharmonic successfully established itself as one of the major international orchestras, through tours and recordings under the leadership of eminent Chief Conductors, including Herbert Blomstedt, Mariss Jansons, André Previn, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Vasily Petrenko. 

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Klaus Mäkelä and Oslo Philharmonic on tour to Asia

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Oslo Philharmonic &  Klaus Mäkelä — Lucerne Festival

Edinburgh

Klaus Mäkelä, Oslo Philharmonic &  Johanna Wallroth — Edinburgh International Festival

Rheingau

Klaus Mäkelä, Oslo Philharmonic &  Johanna Wallroth — Rheingau Music Festival

Hamburg, Germany

Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and Klaus Mäkelä embark on European tour

Vienna, Austria

OSLO PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA &   KLAUS MÄKELÄ SIBELIUS CYCLE RESIDENCIES

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Klaus Mäkelä and Oslo Philharmonic start 2024  in Hamburg

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Klaus Mäkelä and Oslo Philharmonic embark on three-week tour of Asia

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October takes Arts Partnerships &  Tours to Europe and Asia

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Arts Partnerships &  Tours conclude a summer of festivals with debuts &  returning partnerships

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Ten HP artists &  touring clients perform at EIF   2023

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TOURING SUMMER HIGHLIGHTS 2022

Klaus Makela © Marco Borggreve

KLAUS MÄKELÄ  —  PROMS   DEBUT

Klaus makela and oslo philharmonic virtual circle

Klaus Mäkelä and Oslo Philharmonic’s long-awaited tour

BBC Proms © BBC Proms

HarrisonParrott and Polyarts artists appear in 2022 BBC  Proms

Klaus Makela © Marco Borggreve

Klaus Mäkelä

Klaus Makela

Klaus Mäkelä announced as Chief Conductor &  Artistic Advisor of Oslo philharmonic from 2020 / 21 season

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Oslo Philharmonic: A Century of Grieg, Tours and 12-Tone Techniques

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As the Oslo Philharmonic marks its centenary with an appearance at the Barbican in London, Andrew Mellor looks back over a hundred years of orchestrating events through war, peace, hard times and prosperity.

Misery is the chief by-product of war but if a handful of good things had their origins in the conflict that ravaged Europe in the 1910s, the Oslo Philharmonic is one of them. Bergen and Trondheim dominated Norway’s music scene until the early 18th century but when the centre of gravity finally shifted south, Oslo and its inhabitants were unprepared. One concert society had already failed and another, established by Edvard Grieg and Otto Winter-Hjelm, finally collapsed in 1919 after war-induced inflation.

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The Oslo Philharmonic in 1919 standing in front of Edvard Munch’s mural The Sun (Photo: Oslo Philharmonic)

Norway remained neutral during the war but its trade suffered and its people were politicized. Their appetite for music only increased, and the vacuum left by the collapse of Grieg’s ‘Musikforening’ was there to be filled.

It was, and quickly. The first concert of the newfangled Filharmoniske Selskap (Philharmonic Society) on 27 September 1919 was nothing if not nationalistic. Oslo’s first permanent symphony orchestra played Johan Svendsen’s Festpolonaise , Christian Sinding’s Symphony No 1 and the piano concerto and stirring hymn Landkjenning by Grieg. Georg Schnéevoigt, an experienced facilitator from Finland, conducted.

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The Oslo Philharmonic in 1921 (Photo: Oslo Philharmonic)

Musical nationalism was on shaky ground at the time. In a changing Europe, what was music’s purpose? Should an orchestra in the Norwegian capital occupy itself and its fresh-eared audiences with music by Grieg and Sinding , Beethoven and Mahler or Stravinsky and Debussy? How much time should be given over to contemporary Norwegian voices and how much to allowing international currents to wash into a still young country via its capital’s even younger symphony orchestra?

These are the questions the early Oslo Philharmonic (as it was officially branded in 1980) asked itself. Even from the inside, there were conflicting answers. In the orchestra’s first season, there was indeed music by Mahler, Debussy and Grieg (much of it brand new) and also by fellow northern Europeans Carl Nielsen, Vasily Kalinnikov and Selim Palmgren. The celebrated Austrian conductor Felix Weingartner visited to conduct a second performance of Sinding’s determined Symphony No 1, a work, like so many others by composers of Sinding’s vintage, with a Leipzig-derived German accent.

Young Nordic composers were generally sent to Leipzig to study in the school founded by Mendelssohn and later presided over by Niels Gade from Denmark, whose preeminence in both Leipzig and Copenhagen was one reason for the pan-Baltic link. But Oslo’s own conservatory was now into its third decade. Grieg had demonstrated that Leipzig training, however useful, didn’t have to result in a Leipzig style. Sibelius in Finland and Nielsen in Denmark, meanwhile, proved that Nordic music could and should follow its own paths, however diverse.

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The Oslo Philharmonic performing outside in Oslo in 1947 (Photo: Oslo Filharmonien)

As such, a bright young man named Olav Kielland, one of the Oslo Philahrmonic’s first named conductors, made a strong impression with his own Symphony No 1 (1935). He remained the orchestra’s artistic director until 1945, at which point war once more had a curiously benevolent effect on Norwegian music life: Kielland was offered a senior conducting position with the New York Philharmonic in 1939, but the danger of crossing the Atlantic prevented him from accepting.

In the 1920s and 30s, intriguing new voices emerged in Norway. The Oslo Philharmonic gave its first performance of Ludvig Irgens-Jensen’s monumental and meticulous Passacaglia in 1929, and of his equally enthralling Theme with Variations in 1934. In 1939, David Monrad Johansen wrote his symphonic homage to the ‘forces of nature at work’ in Knut Hamsun’s writing: a lean and borderline impressionistic score titled Pan. Johansen’s son Johan Kvandal came to prominence in the second half of the century; he finished his piano concerto for the pianist Håvard Gimse in 1998, the year before he died. Modern recordings of both works have made by the Oslo Philharmonic.

On 9 April 1940, the Nazi fleet cruised ominously into the Oslo Fjord bringing the Second World War to Norway (barely a week before, the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler had been on the Oslo Philharmonic’s podium). At the end of the occupation, Norway welcomed King Haakon VII back from exile with a celebratory concert from the orchestra, which included works by Grieg, Svendsen, Irgens-Jensen and Johan Halvorsen conducted by one of its formative musicians, Odd Grüner-Hegge. Five years later, the ensemble inaugurated the city’s striking new redbrick Town Hall designed by Arnstein Arneberg and Magnus Poulsson, presenting Irgens-Jensen’s choral-orchestral work Canto d’omaggio underneath the Hogwarts-esque staircase of its huge atrium.

The post-war years again focused minds on the need to foster locally distinctive but internationally relevant voices. One of the most significant was that of Fartein Valen, the gentle serialist from Norway’s west coast whose highly crafted works have never had the recognition they deserve. The Orchestra made the first recording of Valen’s calligraphic Violin Concerto, with soloist Camilla Wicks and conductor Øivin Fjelstadt. Klaus Egge, who pioneered his own distinctive 12-tone technique, was active in the post-war years too, writing symphonic and concertante works and orchestral songs (he built enough of a reputation overseas to have his Symphony No 4 commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra). An invigorating presence in these years was that of the composer and critic Pauline Hall, who as founding chair of Ny Musikk from 1938-61 was a catalyst for so much innovation and confidence among Norwegian composers.

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The Oslo Philharmonic performing at Oslo’s Akers Mek dockyards in 1950 (Photo: Oslo Filharmonien)

As the world order settled and lines of communication laid new economic foundations, Norway and her neighbours were beginning to see the importance of looking outwards. In the Oslo Philharmonic, the seeds had been sown with visits in the 1920s and 30s from first-rate international figures including Pierre Monteux, Maurice Ravel, Karol Szymanowski, Poul Hindemith, Thomas Beecham and Adrian Boult. In 1956, the orchestra made the first ever commercial recording of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung , starring soprano Kirsten Flagstad , conducted by Fjelstadt, and released on London label Decca.

In 1962, the orchestra ventured physically out of Scandinavia for the first time, touring to Amsterdam, Berlin and Frankfurt. With Fjelstadt and Herbert Blomstedt in charge (the latter, remarkably, will conduct again in this anniversary season), the ensemble was starting to build its own sound culture. One critic listening on that tour noted the “new accent” it brought to the European orchestral scene. Foundations were laid for the era that would make the Oslo Philharmonic world renowned: the appointment of Mariss Jansons as Chief Conductor in 1979, two years after the opening of the Oslo Concert Hall.

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Oslo Philharmonic performing in Athens in 1965 (Photo: Oslo Filharmonien)

Jansons took the orchestra apart, worked on every section of it individually, and put it back together again to make one of the most formidable and charismatic orchestral ensembles in the world. Audiences started to encounter the orchestra’s silky, focused string sound and smooth-blend brass and winds, even in performances that transcended those qualities. Jansons initially schooled the orchestra in Russian repertoire: first Tchaikovsky (with a series of recordings still discussed today), then Stravinsky and Shostakovich. At the orchestra’s 75 th birthday concert in 1994, he conducted a performance of Schoenberg’s Gürrelieder , which had first been on the orchestra’s music stands in 1927 when less than two decades old.

Also on the menu during that celebratory year were Egil Hovland’s new Piano Concerto and other newly-commissioned works by enfants terrible Lasse Thoresen and Olav Anthon Thomessen. During his tenure, Jansons recorded music by half a dozen Norwegian composers and performed many more in concert. He negotiated the grotesque, humorous and wildly melancholy world of Harald Sæverud , and showed his vast experience in the sophisticated post-Romantic architecture of Finn Mortensen’s Symphony Op 5, arguably the finest symphony written in Norway. He made a memorable recording of Canticum , a beautiful miniature by the former Oslo Philharmonic violinist Carl Gustav Sparre Olsen.

The orchestra’s centenary falls at a fascinating time for Norwegian music. There has been the opportunity to commission more music from Thoresen, still ‘terrible’ if not so much of an ‘enfant’ (he is now Professor of Composition at the Norwegian State Academy of Music ) and to call upon a generation of new composers including Øyvind Torvund, Gisle Kverndokk, Rolf Wallin and Therese Birkelund Ulvo, the breadth of whose work demonstrates how eclectic the music scene has become. Other new works include the Cello Concerto by Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, who served as Permanent Guest Conductor from 1984-89. Almost all these composers, even in their diversity, demonstrate certain longstanding values in Nordic music – notably, a tendency towards rigorous, efficient design whether heard as a principle of overall form or in a general lack of wasted notes.

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The Oslo Philharmonic performing in Slottsplassen in Oslo in 2019 (Photo: Oslo Filharmonien)

The centenary season will look backwards as well as forwards. It revives thrilling, brutalist music by Arne Nordheim , gems by Irgens-Jensen (his delicious song cycle Japanese Spring ) and Pauline Hall (whose Verlaine formed part of the centenary concert on 27 September). That concert also referenced the very first, 100 years ago, with a movement from Grieg’s Piano Concerto and Henrik Hellsetenius’s new reimagining of Grieg’s Landkjenning .

In London on 22 October 2019, the Oslo Philharmonic’s current Chief Conductor Vasily Petrenko is set to channel its illustrious pedigree in Russian music with Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10. But before that, he conducts the piece many associate with Norway most of all: Grieg’s Piano Concerto. Leif Ove Andsnes hadn’t played the work in public for 12 years when he returned to it for the first time this summer, a return marked by fingerwork of freshness, vigor and clarity. He is a player of colossal experience who values his roots yet still, in comparison with the greats among which he can take his place, apparently remains ever young. The same can be said of the Oslo Philharmonic.

The Oslo Philharmonic will be performing at the Barbican Centre, London, on 22 October 2019

Top Photo: Members of the Oslo Philharmonic celebrating their centenary in 2019 (Oslo Filharmonien)

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Oslo Philharmonic

In September 1919, the Orchestra of the Philharmonic Company – later to be known as the Oslo Philharmonic – took to the stage for its first public concert in the Norwegian capital. The launch of an independent symphony orchestra was a major event attended by the Royal Family and its fame soon started attracting international stars such as Jean Sibelius and Arthur Nikisch, who both conducted the orchestra in 1921. In the century to follow, the Oslo Philharmonic successfully established itself as one of the major international orchestras, through tours and recordings under the leadership of eminent Chief Conductors, including Herbert Blomstedt, Mariss Jansons, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Vasily Petrenko. The Oslo Philharmonic began its 101st season in August 2020 with new chief conductor Klaus Mäkelä, whose close relationship with the musicians had been immediately apparent on his debut with the orchestra two years earlier. Mäkelä’s first major project with the orchestra was a recording of the complete symphonies of Sibelius, which was released on Decca in spring 2022 and awarded both the Choc Classica Recording of the Year (France) and an Edison Award (Netherlands). The recording was followed by critically acclaimed Sibelius residencies at the Wiener Konzerthaus and Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and appearances at the Paris Philharmonie and BBC Proms, which received five star reviews from both The London Times and Guardian. Now in their fifth season together, Klaus Mäkelä and the Oslo Philharmonic continue to tour regularly and, as the Wiener Zeitung wrote of their recent return to the Austrian capital, “the collaboration between orchestra and conductor is alive with lightness and joy.” In 2022, the orchestra was nominated for Gramophone Orchestra of the Year and, together with Klaus Mäkelä, received the Sibelius Prize for outstanding efforts to promote contact between Finnish and Norwegian musical life.

As of: December 2023

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Shostakovich Symphony No. 5: “In a truly magnificent performance Mäkelä squeezed out every drop of energy at key moments, the burnished Oslo heavy brass and stormy unison strings notching up the turmoil … keeping undercurrents turbulent, he struck the ambiguous balance with thrilling perfection.”

***** Bachtrack.com, David Smythe, 23 August 2023

“The opening movement was instantly all-consuming, a journey of organic inevitability encompassing the sublime, the cataclysmic, and the disarming naivety of its closing bars.“

***** The Scotsman , Ken Walton, 23 August 2023

“It was both the foundation stone and the life-blood of perhaps the finest performance of this piece I have heard.“

Seen and Heard International , Simon Thompson 23 August 2023

Sibelius Symphony No. 7 :

“Makela’s close attention to colouring individual phrases, particularly in the strings, created a beautifully cantabile effect. There was magic, even devilry, in the fast middle part, and scrupulous balance between the sections. Pure refreshment.”

***** The Times , Neil Fisher, 22 August 2023

“The intense concentration of conductor and orchestra alike, with first and second violins divided across the stage, cellos and violas powering from the middle, gave magnificence and glinting spirit to this account.”

**** The Observer , Fiona Maddocks, 26 August 2023

Mahler Symphony No. 4 :

“… it was delicacy that marked this performance of the Fourth, most of all in the shimmer of the strings — often gossamer-light, with exquisitely deft portamenti. The result was far from rough-hewn, angsty Mahler … to me it had a startling, effervescent effect.”

“… an interpretation that was precisely proportioned in every respect with a sound whose brightness and lightness,so to speak, strove with the symphony towards the heavens, but in which there was nevertheless room for coarse accents from the earthly world.”

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Axel Zibliski, 21 August 2023

“In Lucerne, Klaus Mäkelä and his Oslo Philharmonic set the stage with the big trowel. Gustav Mahler, Richard Wagner and Jean Sibelius. Three scores that make steep demands vertically and horizontally. Too steep as it turns out … In Mahler’s Fourth Symphony the design never develops the flow to keep the long movements going. Single brushstrokes, short sketched lines. A picture far from the complete work of art. ”

Luzerner Zeitung , Roman Kühne, 25 August 2023

“ … this is an astonishingly mature interpretation of Mahler … In general, the music glows and lightens under Mäkler’s hands without getting out of hand into formless rapture. In the similarly original second programme, this is of particular benefit to Tchaikovsky’s early Shakespeare fantasy “The Tempest” and the “Poeme de l’extase” by Alexander Scriabin, which Mäkelä steers into a frenzy with a hot heart but cool head.”

Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Christian Wildhagen, 29 August 2023

RHEINGAU MUSIC FESTIVAL Programme: Richard Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from “Tristan und Isolde” Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4 Soloist: Johanna Wallroth

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL Programmes: Rolf Gupta: Epilogue from  Earth’s Song  Jean Sibelius: Symphony No 7  Gustav Mahler: Symphony No 4 Soloist: Johanna Wallroth

Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand  Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto in G  Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No 5 Soloist: Yuja Wang

LUCERNE FESTIVAL Programmes: Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4 Richard Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 7 Soloist: Johanna Wallroth

Pyotr Tchaikovsky: The Tempest: Symphonic Fantasia in F minor after William Shakespeare Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto for the Left Hand Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major Alexander Scriabin: Le Poème de l’Extase Soloist: Yuja Wang

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Chief Conductor & Artistic Advisor

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   Music Director & Artistic Director

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                  Artistic Partner      Chief Conductor (from 2027/28)

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Opening of Oslo Concert Hall

In 1972, excavations for what was to become Oslo Concert Hall started in Vestre Vika. The start of this meant that the decades-long debate on where the hall was to be built, could be put to rest. It also meant that a proper concert hall was finally going to be constructed in Oslo, almost 120 years after violin legend Ole Bull started raising funds for the purpose.  

The building period was far from free of conflict. In 1964, the estimated construction costs were 64 million Norwegain kroner, but this increased gradually to 258 million, which naturally led to furious discussion regarding the financing. The orchestra had no representatives in the Building Committee, which created friction regarding the following up of the orchestra’s needs in the new building.  

The construction process was met with additional challenges. When the opening day drew close, an argument broke out concerning the programme for the inaugural concert. Should this principally consist of new Norwegian music or established classics? After a tough conflict with the Norwegian Composers’ Union, the orchestra accepted the first alternative.  

On the morning of 22 March, 1977, the offical opening took place, with the Chairman of the Board of the concert hall, Brynjulf Bull, as the main speaker. “We come late, and we come at a cost − but we are coming, your Majesty!” Bull stated. He went on: “We have not grown poorer, but richer, in investing so much in this building. Future generations will thank us for it”.  

In the evening of the same day, the Oslo Philharmonic performed the inaugural concert for a hall filled with celebrated guests, including the Royal Family. Principal Conductor Okko Kamu conducted Klaus Egge’s Symphony No. 2 and two prize-winning works from a composition competition held in honour of the opening: Opening by Oddvar S. Kvam, and č Sv by Jan Persen. After the break, former Principal Conductor Øivin Fjeldstad conducted the orchestra in Johan Svendsen’s Symphony No. 2.  

The Concert Hall’s inauguration programme continued throughout that week, and in the following weeks, activity in the house remained high. In its inaugural year, every household in Oslo was sent the folder “Come and Listen to our New Home”  − a great communications effort for its time.  

In the course of the first six months, 120.000 tickets were sold for various arrangements in the hall, and in the course of the first two years, the number of visitors had exceeded 400.000. There were to be numerous long discussions regarding the acoustics and other conditions in the years to follow. But that the hall was a popular success was indisputable.  

(Translation from Norwegian: Sarah Osa)

Musicians March for a New Concert Hall

The story of constructing a new concert hall for orchestral music in Oslo is far older than the Oslo Philharmonic. As early as 1860, Ole Bull, the great violin virtuoso of his time, arranged three concerts with the aim of raising money for a new concert hall in his Christiania.

In 1918, the year before the Oslo Philharmonic performed its very first concert, shipping magnate A.F. Klaveness and his wife Therese donated 500,000 Norwegian kroner to the orchestra, which formed the basis for a concert hall fund. However, the following decades witnessed a string of discussions and decisions which did not yield any concrete results.

In the 1950s, however, things started to change. In 1955, an architectural competition was held in connection with plans for a new concert hall, and in 1957 a winner was announced: the Swedish architect Gösta Åbergh. It was the 10-year anniversary of this competition that the musicians of the Oslo Philharmonic marked with their demonstration in June of 1967.

The demonstration, including 70 musicians dressed in tails, went from the University Square and around the Town Hall, ending in the concert hall site in Vika, which was still a well-filled parking lot. There, they concluded their demonstration with performing the march Hiv ankeret! , and could thereby confirm that they had at least played on of the planned concert hall’s site.

The exercise had a big effect on the debate surrounding the issue. Mona Levin sums up the reactions to the demonstration in the Oslo Philharmonic’s anniversary yearbook from 1994:

“The demonstration was noticed by many, and was fully supported by the public as seen in the press, radio and television. In all years, both before and after the war, the Philharmonic’s administration and musicians have been enduring champions for the building of a new concert hall. Countless articles, chronicles, and comments have been penned and debated, countless reasons have been given for how an improvement of the orchestra’s working situation would benefit the common good. Now, the indefatigable pioneers of our music life can take comfort in the fact that also the general public demands a new concert hall”.

In December 1967, the foundation stone of Oslo Concert Hall was laid.  

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  2. KLAUS MÄKELÄ OPENS HIS FIRST SEASON WITH THE OSLO PHILHARMONIC

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  3. Oslo Philharmonic and Vasily Petrenko Celebrate the Orchestra’s

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  4. Das Oslo Philharmonic unter Klaus Mäkelä in der Elbphilharmonie

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  5. Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra

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  6. Planet Hugill: Celebrating 100 years: the Oslo Philharmonic's centenary

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COMMENTS

  1. Oslo Philharmonic

    The Oslo Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra of international renown. It was formed in 1919 and today has 108 musicians in its ranks. ... The 2023/24 includes seventeen concerts at home in Norway a three week tour of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and guest performances in Hamburg, Amsterdam, Paris and Vienna. Rear more. Music videos.

  2. Tours

    The Oslo Philharmonic has had several tours to the Far East following its very first tour to Japan in 1988. The most recent tour to the region − to China and Taiwan − took place in the spring of 2017. Chief Conductor Vasily Petrenko led four concerts in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and Truls Mørk was the soloist for all the concerts, playing ...

  3. The Oslo Philharmonic

    One of the best orchestras in Europe, with regular performances in Oslo Concert Hall when not touring in Norway and abroad. The orchestra has a vast repertoire and often features world-famous soloists and conductors. Right before most of the concerts, the programme is presented in "Behind the Notes" in Glasshuset in Oslo Concert Hall. Last ...

  4. Oslo Philharmonic

    The Oslo Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra of international renown. It was formed in 1919 and today has 108 musicians in its ranks. The Oslo Philharmonic plays between 60 and 70 concerts in ...

  5. OSLO PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA tickets, concerts & tour dates

    View dates & locations | Tour Info. Find & buy OSLO PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA tickets | Book online

  6. Oslo Philharmonic

    The Oslo Philharmonic (Oslo-Filharmonien) is a Norwegian symphony orchestra based in Oslo, Norway.The orchestra traces its roots to the Philharmonic Society founded in 1847 and the Christiania Musical Association co-founded by Edvard Grieg in 1871, and was established in its current form in 1919. Since 1977, it has had its home in the Oslo Concert Hall.

  7. OSLO PHILHARMONIC 21/22 SEASON ANNOUNCEMENT

    In Spring 2022 the Oslo Philharmonic performs the complete Sibelius Symphony cycle at the Wiener Konzerthaus (21-23 May), where Klaus Mäkelä is a featured "Portrait Artist", and in residency at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie (30 May-1 June). Their first international tour together also includes performances in Paris and London.

  8. Concert calendar Oslo Philharmonic

    Get an overview of the Oslo Philharmonic's upcoming concerts.

  9. Oslo Philharmonic

    On September 27, 1919, the Orchestra of the Philharmonic Company - later to be known as the Oslo Philharmonic − took to the stage for its first public concert. The creation of an independent symphony orchestra in the city was a major event and among the prominent guests at the opening concert were King Haakon VII and Queen Maud.

  10. Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra Tickets, Tour Dates & Concerts ...

    Find information on all of Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra's upcoming concerts, tour dates and ticket information for 2023-2024. Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra is not due to play near your location currently - but they are scheduled to play 1 concert across 1 country in 2023-2024. View all concerts.

  11. 2022/23 Season

    The Oslo Philharmonic Choir celebrates its centenary with a magnificent gala concert together with the Oslo Philharmonic and conductors Cathrine Winnes and Øystein Fevang. 3rd, 4th and 5th January 2023 New Year's Concert. The Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili is the soloist for Franz Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2.

  12. Bolero / Maurice Ravel / Vasily Petrenko / Oslo Philharmonic

    The Oslo Philharmonic with conductor Vasily Petrenko perform Maurice Ravel's Bolero in the Palace Square in Oslo on 15th August 2019.#classicalmusic #concert...

  13. Klaus Mäkelä

    Oslo Philharmonic, 19 August 2020, Oslo Concert Hall. Acclaims & Features. Press All Press. Mar 05, 2024. Orchestre de Paris "Some evenings are half fig, half grape. Such was the case with the concert by the Orchestre de Paris conducted by its musical director Klaus Mäkelä. A dazzling concert presenting the 3 great ballets of 1909-1913 by ...

  14. Oslo Philharmonic: A Century of Grieg, Tours and 12-Tone Techniques

    One concert society had already failed and another, established by Edvard Grieg and Otto Winter-Hjelm, finally collapsed in 1919 after war-induced inflation. ... The Oslo Philharmonic will be performing at the Barbican Centre, London, on 22 October 2019. Top Photo: Members of the Oslo Philharmonic celebrating their centenary in 2019 (Oslo ...

  15. Pyotr Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5

    Subscribe to our channel at https://oslophil.lnk.to/oslophil-subs...#classicalmusic #tchaikovsky #symphony #orchestra #concert The Oslo Philharmonic with con...

  16. Oslo Concert Hall

    Oslo Concert Hall (Oslo Konserthus) is a concert hall located in Vika, a part of Oslo city centre in Norway. It is the base of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (Oslo-Filharmonien), but it also aims to be one of the premier music venues for the general musical and cultural life of Norway, offering a broad variety of musical styles from classical ...

  17. Oslo Philharmonic

    In September 1919, the Orchestra of the Philharmonic Company - later to be known as the Oslo Philharmonic - took to the stage for its first public concert in the Norwegian capital. The launch of an independent symphony orchestra was a major event attended by the Royal Family and its fame soon started attracting international stars such as ...

  18. Oslo Philharmonic's History

    The Oslo Philharmonic's tour to the United Kingdom in 1982 was in this way a sort of test which might open up for new possibilities. Fortunately, the orchestra passed the test with flying colours, and when it returned for a new tour in the autumn of 1984, both concert stages and everything surrounding the orchestra had received an upgrade. ...

  19. Symphony No. 4 / Pyotr Tchaikovsky / Vasily Petrenko / Oslo Philharmonic

    The Oslo Philharmonic with conductor Vasily Petrenko perform Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in Oslo Concert Hall. The recording was made on 14th January ...

  20. Oslo Philharmonic on tour

    Oslo Philharmonic on tour Shostakovich Symphony No. 5: "In a truly magnificent performance Mäkelä squeezed out every drop of energy at key moments, the burnished Oslo heavy brass and stormy unison strings notching up the turmoil … keeping undercurrents turbulent, he struck the ambiguous balance with thrilling perfection."

  21. Concert Hall

    The story of constructing a new concert hall for orchestral music in Oslo is far older than the Oslo Philharmonic. As early as 1860, Ole Bull, the great violin virtuoso of his time, arranged three concerts with the aim of raising money for a new concert hall in his Christiania. In 1918, the year before the Oslo Philharmonic performed its very ...