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A piano sounds quietly in the silence; an old song, long buried, heaves itself upwards to echo and resound anew. At first, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s atmospheric reworkings of Durham miners’ songs might not sound as if they have much to do with Rachmaninov’s popular Piano Concerto No.2. But in the hands of Ö÷²¥´óÐã Symphony Orchestra Principal Guest Conductor Dalia Stasevska and pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk (‘Dazzling’: The Financial Times), they become part of a deeper, darker picture: an unfolding soundscape that embraces both the soaring romantic tragedy of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and the elemental sonorities of Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir – the extraordinary, Academy Award-winning musical imagination behind Joker and Chernobyl.

Image: Dalia Stasevska © Sanna Lehto