Plans with the Chamber Choir Näsin Ääni

Monday the 17th of March. Today I met up with Markus Yli-Jokipii for discussing my upcoming composition concert 14.5.2014. He is the conductor of the chamber choir Näsin Ääni. So we went through which pieces I have written for choir (I have over 1 hours of choral music in overall), and which pieces Näsin Ääni will sing. We came to the conclusion that they will sing three of my works; “Han som du älskar finns inte mer”,  “Visheten” and also the choir suite “Min Gud”.

Han som du älskar finns inte mer won a third prize in the national choral composition competition arranged by FSSMF - Finland Svenska Sång och Musikförbund (The Swedish Song and Music Society) in 2009 and was printed by them and is for sale as well. Näsin Ääni gave the piece its first performance in Oktober 2010 when they sang it at their 10-year anniversary concert in Pirkanmaan musiikkiopisto.

“Visheten” op.29 was commissioned by Näsin Ääni itself, as a composer internship for me. The task was to write a piece for eight-voiced mixed choir to a sacral text with a length of about 5-8 min. The piece is written to the bible text Job 28. I began with the piece in summer 2013 and after a long rest completed it in November 2013.

“Min Gud” Op.16 for Womans Choir was the biggest question mark. Markus really likes the piece, but suggested I would arrange it for mixed choir. He said: “It’s far to good of a piece for only existing as a woman’s choir version. If it would exist also as a mixed choir version it would be performed all the time! So I suggest you arrange it for mixed choir as soon as possible. If possible, even for your own concert!”. The only minor problem is that I have actually verbally half promised to dedicate the piece to the Academic Womens Choir Lyran, so they of course want to have it’s first performance. But if I make a new version for mixed choir, then Lyran could still have the first performance of the original piece and version. So I think I will just add “write a new version of Min Gud” to my workinglist.

Markus has been really enthusiastic about my choral music. I’m so happy that he is just about as excited about my upcoming composition concert as I am!