Requiem

Vaasa City Orchestra
cond. Anna-Maria Helsing
sol. Wilhelmina Tómasdóttir, soprano & Tomi Punkeri, barytone
Chamber Choir Canticum Maris

At the Vaasa City Orchestra’s Easter concert on Good Friday, the audience will hear Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem as the evening’s main work—a piece that, within its genre, is strikingly bright and comforting in its view of eternal rest after death. In the concert, conducted by Chief Conductor Anna-Maria Helsing, the audience can enjoy distinguished vocal performances from both the orchestra’s long-standing collaborator, the chamber choir Canticum Maris, and from two fresh-sounding soloists: baritone Tomi Punkeri and the Finnish-Icelandic soprano Wilhelmina Tómasdóttir, who, despite her young age, has already attracted attention on concert and opera stages as well as in vocal competitions. The orchestral interludes in Arvo Pärt’s Cantus, written in memory of Benjamin Britten, and the “Good Friday Music” from Richard Wagner’s Parsifal, lead listeners into the mood of the requiem.