The Baltic Youth Philharmonic

This very young orchestra emerged, quite literally, on the waves of the Baltic Sea in 2008. It was founded by the Usedom Music Festival, held annually on the Baltic Sea island of Usedom in eastern Germany, and the company Nord Stream AG, which is constructing a gas pipe through the Baltic Sea.

The orchestra is headed by Kristjan Järvi, the son of the renowned Estonian Neeme Järvi and brother of the equally renowned Paavo. The youngest member of the Järvi family, he studied conducting at the Manhattan School of Music in New York and in 1993 he formed The Absolute Ensemble, a chamber orchestra with which he has made numerous recordings; some of these have been nominated for the prestigious Grammy awards. Currently, however, the conductor’s main concern is the Baltic Youth Philharmonic Orchestra.

The ensemble has a simple structure – it is formed of seventy students from conservatoires in ten Baltic Sea nations who are chosen through competitions. The orchestra performs at the Usedom Festival in autumn, and there are also frequent concerts in various towns and cities throughout the Baltic region.

The special marine environment of the ensemble is based on the presumption that the orchestra performs, first and foremost, works by composers from the ten Baltic States. And this is an expansion rather than a limitation of the musical horizons. By bringing together that which, at first glance, cannot be combined, say, for example, Tchaikovsky and Zimmermann or Stravinsky and Sibelius in the territory of the “Baltic roots” of these musicians, extremely interesting parallels can emerge.

The orchestra has already earned a glowing reputation in Europe, but this summer in St Petersburg the musicians face a more serious task, as they will be joined by fellow students from Venezuela who will be performing on behalf of a flourishing region of South America. The Baltic will have to offer a counterargument of its own.

Yekaterina Belyaeva