commission: Norrbotten Chamber Orchestra (Norrbottenmusiken)
first performance: 1-3.09.2021 in Piteå, Luleå and Haparanda (Sweden) / Tornio (Finland)
publisher: Svensk Musik
Flows (Tornio) was commissioned by Norrbotten Chamber Orchestra to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the town of Tornio in 2021, a three-commission project that also included two other towns in northern Sweden: Piteå and Luleå, to build a jubilee-suite in three parts, Flows (Tornio) being the second part.
Now Finnish, Tornio forms a cross-border town with the Swedish town of Haparanda, situated at the mouth of the River Torne at the tip of the Gulf of Bothnia.
Flows is inspired by all the water coming from the far north via three border rivers between Finland and Sweden: the rivers Könkämäeno, Muonio and Torne, and falls out in the Gulf of Bothnia. These northern rivers are frozen for several months in winter and begin to carry ice from early May, (by Tornio) to early June (at Torne Lake), sometimes with dramatic break-ups and floods.
Madeleine Isaksson