Maestro Tõnu Kaljuste conducted the Swedish Youth Orchestra at Chicago Symphony Center, at New York Carnegie Hall and at the Strathmore Music Center near Washington D.C. (three concerts from the 23th – the 27th of January). The program included Arvo Pärt’s Cantus, August Söderman’s Swedish Festival Music, Tobias Broström’s double concerto Samsara and Sergey Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2. The Swedish National Youth Orchestra, consisting of 100 talented young musicians was at the first tour in the United States. The Orchestra gave its inaugural performance at the prestigious Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm in 2010. Tõnu Kaljuste is named as the world’s foremost interpreter of Arvo Pärt. He has been appointed a member of the Royal Musical Academy of Sweden and he has been awarded the Japanese ABC Music Award and Robert Edler Prize. Since 2004 he is appointed Artistic Director of the Nargen Opera in Estonia and since 2010 he has been the professor and head of the conducting department at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.
