Lemi Music Festival: Beethoven 250

The Lemi Music Festival celebrates the 250th anniversary jubilee of Beethoven. The Lemi Music Festival is organized by the Lemi Music Association, founded in 1985 to promote classical music in Lemi and South Karelia. For the 250th anniversary jubilee year of Ludwig van Beethoven, the festival will host the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra for 2 concerts at the Lemi Church, in a program centered around the composers that impacted Beethoven the most and of course, Beethoven himself. Indeed, the rise of Beethoven as one of the most well known composers of all times, is itself a culminating point of all the developments in western classical music, brought by Haydn and Mozart, who greatly contributed to the symphonic genre and paved the way for the writing of Beethoven. The 3 composers also had direct connections between them; Beethoven studied with Haydn, who also mentored Mozart in a minor capacity. Thus, their musical universes are also linked by the direct influence that the teacher has on his students, while in this case, each of the students also forged his own unique, recognizable and long-lasting language. As a result, this program showcases not only Beethoven's music, but also the various connections, whether material - like the theme of the "Eroica" Symphony - or more general - like the teacher-student link between Haydn and Beethoven - that contributed to make the composer the figure he is today.