Tag: Kenneth Woods- conductor

Finnish composer Jean Sibelius composed his last symphony, the Seventh, in 1924. Though he would live another 33 years after its completion, he would never again complete a symphony. This remarkable work unfolds in a single, unbroken musical span of about twenty minutes, yet it depicts a musical drama of truly epic proportions. This May 2021 performance by the English Symphony Orchestra marked the first time the orchestra’s full symphonic forces were brought together since the outbreak of the covid pandemic, and the atmosphere of the sessions had a particular degree of intensity as a result. With this performance, the orchestra embarked on a multi-year project to explore, perform and record all the Sibelius symphonies, with No. 6 planned for spring 2022, alongside Sibelius’ final orchestral work, the symphonic poem Tapiola.