Musician Iiro Rantala’s work Veneziana received its world premiere on Thursday in Muonio Oloki. Rantala, as soloist of the Lapland Chamber Orchestra, will perform on Friday at the Korundi Culture House in Rovaniemi.
From Lapland, the work will travel to Berlin, where Rantala will perform it with the Berlin Philharmonic on 1 February. The Berlin concert will also be recorded.
The events take place in Venice
Veneziana is an eight-piece chamber music series for piano concerto, the parts of which are based on fictional events in Venice. The story features Mozart, Sibelius, Vivaldi and Casanova, among others.
– I chose these characters because some of them are related to the history of Venice and some I wanted to plant in the work. I wanted to include Sibelius as a national composer,” says Iiro Rantala.
The piece was made in six months. The limit and the deadline guaranteed the creation of the work.
– I’m fast when I need to be. The work was supposed to be at the turn of the year. So deadline is the host. Otherwise, I’d watch Areena’s compilation of castle parties with the best handshake lines over the decades. Especially the handshakes during Kekkonen’s party at the beginning of Linna would take all my time if there was no deadline, Rantala reveals the secrets of his creative process with a twinkle in the corner of his eye.
We had to get to Lapland
Rantala wanted to come to Lapland to present the work.
According to Rantala, the Lapland Chamber Orchestra is just the right size for performing Veneziana, and the work was tailor-made for the chamber orchestra.
– The city’s orchestra usually has around 25–50 musicians. The Lapland Chamber Orchestra has fifteen players. However, there is nothing more Lapland in the piece, even though it was made here.
After Lapland to Berlin
Iiro Rantala feels truly proud and happy to be able to perform in Berlin with a world-famous orchestra and even to record his own work.
– It is a great honor to be able to play my own music as a soloist in a world-famous orchestra. This concert in Berlin will be recorded and a live album will be released.
The last time Iiro Rantala performed with the Lapland Chamber Orchestra was more than 20 years ago.
– In Rovaniemi church, Mozart piano concerto in A major and Aulis Sallinen’s Chamber music 4. The concert was conducted by John Storgårds and I had such good memories of it that I definitely wanted to come back here before retirement, says Rantala.