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Dalia Stasevska is a commanding musical voice of our time, who ‘ignites orchestras with sheer force of personality’ (The Arts Desk). Her 2024 Sydney debut ‘brought the house down’ (classikON), and she returns with this unforgettable concert. 

In Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Archora, sound moves like light through mist. Then Stasevska joins forces with her husband, bassist and composer Lauri Porra, for his extraordinary concerto Entropia. Porra’s music moves in waves of colour and motion – unsurprising given his heritage as Sibelius’s great-grandson. 

Then Dvořak’s Seventh Symphony marries a dark and urgent power with buoyant lyricism, given vivid shape by Stasevska.

Program

Anna THORVALDSDOTTIR

Archora AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE

Lauri PORRA

Entropia, Concerto for Electric Bass AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE

DVOŘAK

Symphony No.7

Artists

Dalia Stasevska

Conductor

Dalia Stasevska is one of the most stratospherically ascendant musicians in classical music today. She has established herself as a commanding musical voice, a boundary-pushing innovator and a fearless activist and advocate for change. She holds the post of Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

The 2025/26 season featured concerts with the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic as well as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and the Vienna Symphony at the Bregenz Festival. She will also lead the Philadelphia Orchestra for two weeks with soloists Augustin Hadelich, Yo-Yo Ma and Carol Jantsch. Further highlights include two periods with the Deutsches-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, as well as the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic orchestra. 

Her recent orchestral engagements have spanned a distinguished array of ensembles, including performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tangelwood Festival, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresdner Philharmonie and Orchestre de Paris. She has also made notable debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestra, Choir, and Children's Voices of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the New World Symphony, among others. In the summer of 2025, Dalia conducted twice at the BBC Proms – leading both the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

A passionate opera conductor, this season Dalia debuted at the Los Angeles Opera with Philip Glass’s Akhnaten directed by Phelim McDermott, and with Deutsche Oper Berlin with Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Ted Huffman. 2023 saw Dalia’s highly successful debut at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival with a revival of the iconic Peter Halls production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In previous seasons, she returned to Finnish National Opera and Ballet to conduct a double bill of Poulenc’s La voix humane and Weill songs with Karita Mattila, and to Norske Opera to conduct Madama Butterfly and Lucia di Lammermoor

Dalia’s acclaimed recordings include her solo debut album with the BBC Symphony Orchestra entitled Dalia's Mixtape on Platoon, which features the work of ten contemporary composers, including Judith Weir, Anna Meredith, Caroline Shaw and several others, capturing some of the freshest sounds in contemporary music. Nominated for a Gramophone Award in the Contemporary category, the album was released track by track over the course of several months, breaking with traditional album release strategy and offering a new approach for the digital age. She was also featured on Thomas de Hartmann Rediscovered, a collaborative album with violinist Joshua Bell, INSO-Lviv Symphony Orchestra, Matt Haimovitz, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra and Dennis Russell Davies, released on Pentatone, which combines the glowing, cinematic Violin and Cello Concertos of Ukrainian composer de Hartmann, an important compositional voice in his own time. Dalia’s 2023 BIS releases include piano concerti by Rautavaara and Martinů with pianist Olli Mustonen, and Helvi Leiviskä Orchestral Works Vol.1, hailed by The New York Times as ‘remarkable’, with the paper proclaiming, ‘Dalia Stasevska and the Lahti Symphony give everything their all.’

Dalia originally studied as a violinist and composer at the Tampere Conservatoire and, subsequently, violin, viola and conducting at the Sibelius Academy. As a conductor, her teachers include Jorma Panula and Leif Segerstam. Dalia was named the European of the Year in 2025 by the board of European Movement Finland. The award was presented to her alongside her brothers, documentary filmmaker-cellist Lukas Stasevskij and journalist-pianist Justas Stasevskij. Dalia and her siblings were recognized for their actions in promoting European values, international cooperation, and democracy. In April 2024, she was featured on the cover of the Gramophone magazine, and in December of 2023, Dalia was named one of The New York Times' Breakout Stars of 2023. She was also granted BBC Music Magazine's Personality of the Year Award in 2023, the 2022 Alfred Kordelin Prize winner, the 2020 recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society's Conductor Award and had the honour of conducting the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra at the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Stockholm 2018.

Dalia was bestowed the Order of Princess Olga of the III degree by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in October 2021 for her significant personal contribution to the development of international cooperation, strengthening the prestige of Ukraine internationally and popularisation of its historical and cultural heritage. Since February 2022, Dalia has been outspoken in her support of Ukraine, speaking about it publicly while also personally delivering aid to the front lines and conducting concerts in Ukraine.

Dalia Stasevska

Lauri Porra

Electric Bass

Lauri Porra is a Finnish composer and musician. Porra comes from a family of professional musicians stretching back four generations, the most famous of which is the iconic composer Jean Sibelius. His music has been performed by the Finnish Radio Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and the New Bedford Symphony among many others.

Something of a musical polymath, Porra has deep roots in classical and rock music to draw on. An award-winning artist, Porra has considerable experience of playing different contemporary, popular and ethnic styles of music and a long and successful track record of international collaborations. To date he has released four critically acclaimed instrumental solo albums, with the latest, ‘Entropia’ (a collaboration with Lahti Symphony Orchestra), released in January 2018 on BIS-records. Alongside his composition work for orchestras, films and other media, Porra is the bassist in the renowned Finnish power metal band Stratovarius, with whom he has recorded five albums and performed concerts in over 60 countries.

Lauri Porra