Scandinavian Music Concert June 3 to Support the Construction of Pitt's Finnish Heritage Nationality Room

PITTSBURGH-A Scandinavian music concert to support the construction of the University of Pittsburgh's Finnish Heritage Nationality Room will take place at 2 p.m. June 3 in Pitt's Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, 650 Schenley Dr., Oakland.

The concert will feature two violinists from Finland-sisters Linnea and Sylvia Hurttia-and pianist William Larson. The program will include Humoresques I and II and Romance by Sibelius, Sonata for violin and piano by Englund, and short works by Grieg, Järnefelt, Kuula, and Merikanto. Also included will be J.S. Bach's Concerto in d minor for two violins, Bartók's Romanian Dances, Saint-Saëns' Introduction and Rondo Capriccio, and Tchaikovsky's Meditation.

The Hurttia sisters have studied violin in Finland at the Music Conservatory of Turku, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and the Turku Music Academy. They have performed not only in Finland, but also in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, and Switzerland, among other European countries.

Larson is an organist and pianist at the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh who also serves as an accompanist for Duquesne University students and performs as a substitute keyboard musician for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

The Nationality Classrooms are gifts to the University from Pittsburgh's ethnic groups to preserve their heritages. Each of the 26 rooms, which were built between 1938 and 2000, is designed in an architectural style appropriate to the country for which it is named.

The Finnish Room is one of eight Nationality Rooms currently in the planning phase. The others are the Danish, Latin American/Caribbean, Philippine, Swiss, Thai, Turkish, and Welsh rooms.

Admission to the concert is $15 for adults and $10 for students and children under 12. For more information, call Seija Cohen at 412-372-6876.

###

5/23/07/tmw