So lace up your hiking boots and pack your mosquito spray, crispbread, and “brunost” brown cheese — this is a wide-ranging musical journey through the North. We’ll join a spirited pagan dance under the light Nordic summer skies with Alfvén’s vibrant tone poem Midsommarvaka (Midsummer Vigil), and perhaps shed a tear to August Enna’s romantic and deeply moving Overture from The Little Match Girl. We’ll also visit the man who inspired Grieg himself — the Norwegian violinist and composer Ole Bull — through his tender, folk-infused portrait The Herd Girl’s Sunday. Naturally, the journey begins with Edvard Grieg’s own energetic Prelude from the Holberg Suite.

Excerpts from Carl Nielsen’s electrifying Symphony No. 3 “Espansiva”, Sibelius’s darkly lyrical Violin Concerto, and Niels W. Gade’s sensational Symphony No. 1 form the backbone of this concert — an evening where Denmark’s ever-energetic Mathias Hammer leaves the audience newly attuned to the extraordinary wealth of composers the Nordic world has given to classical music.