Superstar violinist Johan Dalene is our 2023/2024 Young Artist in Residence, and before he takes to the Hope Street stage for the first time this season, we caught up with Johan about his career highlights and the phenomenal performances we can expect from him over the next few months…

Johan Dalene has a particular memory of his first visit to Liverpool last spring – and not just because he enjoyed a successful performance of Barber’s Violin Concerto in the city one of his favourite football teams calls home. 

It turns out it was also his first concert outing with the 1725 ‘Duke of Cambridge’ Stradivarius which was previously played by 19^th Century composer and violinist Louis Spohr among others. 

The young Swedish-Norwegian virtuoso had not long picked up the instrument – on generous loan from Oslo’s Anders Sveeas’ Almennyttige Fond – and had only spent a week or two practicing on it at home in Stockholm before he flew to Liverpool. 

“It takes time to get to know [an instrument] but it felt quite good already in the beginning,” he recalls. “And of course, you have to adjust a lot of things; I feel like I had to adjust my playing, in a good way, with this violin. I feel like this violin has so many opportunities, I’ve learned quite a lot from it, with where the sound comes for instance; it has a really sweet, soulful sound, a really interesting sound – in my opinion anyway. 

“It felt good. I was still unsure if I was going to play the concert [with it] or not, but felt it was best to start. And then in the Hall, it felt much better because I think the instrument opens up in a hall, more than when I was just in my room at home.” 

A year on, both Dalene and the ‘Duke of Cambridge’ are returning to Hope Street, with the violinist appearing twice on stage here as this season’s Young Artist in Residence. 

His first concert features Korngold’s glorious Violin Concerto in D major. The last time the work was played on the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall stage was in 2022 when, coincidentally, the soloist was this season’s Artist in Residence, Simone Lamsma. 

Dalene learned the concerto during the Covid pandemic, and before this spring had only given one public performance of it – with the Arctic Philharmonic in Tromsø. 

“I think it’s a fantastic piece,” he says on a Zoom call from a snowy Stockholm. “It’s very fresh, and it feels youthful. The whole thing is very difficult and demanding. But it should sound simple, even if it’s super difficult. It doesn’t sound like that when, for example, [Jascha] Heifetz [who premiered the work in 1947] plays it, it just sounds fun. So that’s the challenge with this music. 

“But also, the second movement is beautiful and quite intimate, although it has a bit of a weird middle section! It’s very romantic but also dramatic and I’m excited to play it in Liverpool.”

The son of a cellist father and pianist mother, when a four-year-old Dalene showed an interest in learning an instrument he was steered in the direction of the violin. 

He went on to make his debut as a soloist with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra at the age of seven, and three years later started studying with his current teacher, Professor Per Enoksson at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. 

Leaving aside a youthful dream of being a footballer, by the time he was 13 he had decided that he wanted to pursue a career as a violinist. 

A BBC New Generation Artist from 2019-21, in 2022 he was also chosen as an ECHO Rising Star for 2021-22. 

He says: “What I love about playing music, of course it’s not my own music that I’m playing but you still feel like you take the work and make it your own interpretation and your own thing. You try to develop your own style of playing, and that’s the thing I love most about playing the violin.” 

Still only 23, Dalene rose to prominence five years ago when he took first prize in the prestigious Carl Nielsen International Competition held in Odense. 

It was an intense week for the then teenager (who had still to graduate from high school), with four different pieces to perform in the competition, culminating in the final with Nielsen’s Violin Concerto itself.  

“That competition was the first time I played that piece with an orchestra,” he recalls. “But I’ve played it every season, or every half year, since.” 

He has also recorded the concerto, releasing it alongside his interpretation of the better-known Sibelius Violin Concerto on a CD which has garnered acclaim and awards including Classical Album of the Year at the Swedish Grammis.

“Of course, Sibelius is an extraordinary piece, but Nielsen is also an extraordinary piece,” he points out. “And while people know the Nielsen, it’s not as famous as a lot of other violin concertos. And it’s a nice way to promote the piece because I love it so much.” 

So much so, that when Dalene was discussing potential programmes for his Liverpool residency, he decided to include Nielsen’s 1911 work which he will perform with the Orchestra when he returns to Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on April 11.

He explains: “What I love about the piece – and his music in general – is the humour that the music has. It’s humorous, it’s a sort of warm humour, it’s not totally weird or anything like that. My teacher always speaks about the Tivoli [Gardens] in Copenhagen. You could maybe say the concerto has some inspiration from rollercoasters, going down and up. But of course, the music still has seriousness, especially in the prelude. It’s also extremely elegant.” 

He grins: “And it also has two cadenzas.”