Czech Philharmonic will perform at the Helsinki Festival in August 2026
25.06.2026 / 13:03 | Aktualizováno: 29.06.2026 / 13:38
The Helsinki Festival, taking place from August 18 to September 5, 2026, will welcome one of today’s most significant symphony orchestras – the Czech Philharmonic, which will perform two concerts at Musiikkitalo in the centre of Helsinki. The orchestra returns to the Finnish capital after an absence of 51 years.
The orchestra, which celebrated 130 years of its existence in the 2025/2026 season, is internationally renowned for its deep connection to Czech musical heritage. Czech composers beloved also in Finland – Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana – are a staple of the orchestra’s repertoire. Since 2018, the orchestra has been led by Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov.
In 2024, the readers of Gramophone magazine voted the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra of the Year. In 2025, the Czech Philharmonic received BBC Music Magazine Orchestral Award for its recording of Má vlast by Bedřich Smetana. In December 2025, Semyon Bychkov also conducted the prestigious Nobel Prize Concert in Stockholm.
The first Helsinki concert of the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Semyon Bychkov will take place on Friday, August 28 at 7:00 pm, featuring Dmitri Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto. The soloist of the evening will be Dutch violin star Janine Jansen, the orchestra´s Artist-In-Residence for the upcoming 2026/2027 season. The programme will conclude with Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7, a work closely linked to the orchestra’s history – Dvořák himself conducted the Czech Philharmonic in its very first public concert in 1896.
© Helsinki Festival
The second concert of the Czech Philharmonic with Chief Conductor Semyon Bychkov will be held on Saturday, August 29 at 7:00 pm and will feature Yunchan Lim, the South Korean pianist and the youngest winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022, in Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto. The concert will conclude with Bedřich Smetana’s monumental cycle of symphonic poems Má vlast (My Homeland). For conductor Semyon Bychkov, Má vlast is not merely a Czech work, but a universal depiction of belonging: “We all have a homeland. Smetana gives voice to his country’s longing, character, and dreams for the future – emotions that are shared by us all.”
© Helsinki Festival
Both concerts will take place in the Concert Hall of Musiikkitalo. Further details are available on the website of the Helsinki Festival, on the website of Musiikkitalo and on the website of the Czech Philharmonic.