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 (Photo: Tuuli Koivisto)
The Kymi Sinfonietta is one of the leading Finnish orchestras of its size. It performs with conductors and soloists of the highest international calibre. Though not officially formed until January 1, 1999, the Kymi Sinfonietta has long traditions, being made up of musicians from the Kotka and Kouvola City Orchestras. Combining their resources enabled the two cities to create a dynamic sinfonietta-sized orchestra. The Kymi Sinfonietta is unusual in Finland in being jointly owned by two cities.
The orchestra's first Artistic Director, Juha Nikkola, quickly succeeded in welding the players into a homogeneous unit. As Principal Guest Conductor 2004-2006 Dmitri Slobodeniouk added new shades to the orchestra's repertoire. Since the beginning of 2007 the artistic direction has been in the hands of the charismatic Yasuo Shinozaki, a conductor who has built up an international career with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, in Japan, Britain and elsewhere.
Concerts by the Kymi Sinfonietta are held at Kotka Concert Hall on Wednesdays and Kouvola City Hall on Thursdays. The orchestra has also won acclaim outside its home province, as on its foreign tours, to St. Petersburg in spring 2003 and to Heerlen, Holland, where it performed at the Euriade 2007 Festival. In September 2004 the Kymi Sinfonietta aroused national and international praise as the orchestra premiering the five finals works in the I International Uuno Klami Composition Competition. These concerts were broadcast to 11 countries.
The Kymi Sinfonietta has a very broad repertoire ranging from small chamber works to large symphonies, occasionally joining forces with other orchestras for the performance of the latter. It released its first, critically-acclaimed disc Klami Rhapsodie on the Alba label in 2002. One of the items on this disc was the world premiere recording of Finnish composer's Uuno Klami's incidental music to the play The Prodigal Son. This was followed in 2004 by a second disc, the opera The Journey by Finnish composer Jukka Linkola based on texts by Toivo Pekkanen. The Kymi Sinfonietta's third disc, KymiScenes, of music by Uuno Klami, was likewise the result of collaboration with the Alba llabel and released at the end of 2007.
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