Recollection - Matei Gheorghiu's Concert

Saturday May 31st. After handing in my compositions for my final exam last Tuesday I can’t really remember very much. I think I have mainly been "dead"? Anyway, today my rabbit Viljo moved to our summer cottage. We took a train together from Tampere to Helsinki, and of course I had to take an obligatory “Traveling with my rabbit”-selfie. My father was so nice and got Viljo (and my other luggage as well) from the train station and brought him straight to our summer cottage.

My rabbit Viljo and me traveling from Tampere to Helsinki by train. 31.5.2014

After this I met up with my friend Leo and we went and looked at my friend Matei Gheorghiu’s composition concert. The concert took place at “Balderin sali” on Aleksanterinkatu and he organized it together with the photographer Octavian Balea and painter (artist) Elina Nissinen, so an interartproject in it’s full meaning.

The concert was structured with some arrangements of Mussorgsky’s “pictures at an art exhibition” for two accordions, that were played in between Matei’s own pieces.

The programme of the concert Recollection 31.5.2014 was:

Matei Gheorghiu: Experiment for 2 accordions

Modest Musorgski: Pictures in an exhibition – Gnomes  (accordion)*

Matei Gheorghiu: Piano Sonata no. 2**

Modest Musorgski: Pictures in an exhibition – Old Castle (accordion)*

Matei Gheorghiu: Ihana surullinen ilta (soprano and piano)***

Modest Musorgski: Pictures in an exhibition: Market place (accordion)*

Matei Gheorghiu: Ratio Spei and Good Freedom (French horn and piano) **

Modest Musorgski: Pictures in an exhibition: Baba Yaga* and The great gate of Kiev (accordion)*

* Projections of artworks by Elina Nissinen

** Projections of photographs by Octavian Balea

*** Live-painting by Elina Nissinen and Octavian Balea

________________________________________________

Break: Nissinen exhibition in the cafeteria

________________________________________________

Little Memory Stories

- Text and photographs by Balea

- Musical direction and performance by Matei Gheorghiu and The Korvat Auki ensemble.

Musicians: Kiril Kozlovski and Maritta Manner: piano, Annami Hylkilä: soprano, Julian Leslie French: horn, Josip Nemet and Mia Cojbasic: accordions, The Korvat Auki ensemble

Artist Elina Nissinen, composer Matei Gheorghiu and pianist Maritta Manner
at Recollection 31.5.2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Artist Elina Nissinen, photographer Octavian Balea and composer Matei Gheorghiu
at Recollection 31.5.2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

I was very happy I got to see the piece “Little Memory Stories” a second time, after having seen it once at the RRR!!–Festival two weeks earlier. This time I had time to look at the pictures, as I had read the text the previous time, and I really liked it. An other piece that I liked especially much was Matei’s piano sonata, which can be heardunder this link.

After the concert we of course went for a few drinks, and then a small number of us rounded of the great evening once again at Siltanen’s.

Elina Nissinen, Sergio Castrillón and my friend Leo. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Siltanen

Saturday 17th of May 2014. I had never been to the bar Siltanen before. It is a redbrick building that looks like an old magazine or factory, which has been turned into a club, just like so many cool places in Berlin (like for instance Tresor). It was really full, but we had a great time! After Siltanen closed we went to the club next to it called Kaiku, which reminded me maybe even more of Berlin, due to it’s over loud techno music and dimmed lights.

After that my one friend made some calls and the three  of us headed of to a after-party. When arriving at the after-party I noticed the guy we were going to was my sisters friend, what a coincidence! We invited two random drunk guys from the street, who sat with us for a while, then they left again. A few of us, including me, stayed over at the party place, because I didn’t feel like going home at 6 AM. Instead I slept until 10 AM, got a green tea, headed home, repacked my bags at turbo speed and ran off again for catching the regional train to Tampere together with Matilda.

Septimalia

Still Friday the 16th of May. Came in the afternoon to Helsinki by train, and was lucky enough to get a ticket to the sold out concert of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Music Centre. The concert contained the premiere of Juhani Nuorvala’s orchestra piece Septimalia, which I didn’t want to miss for any price, and I was very happy I got a ticket by pure luck! It was a very exciting event, because the piece provoked very ambivalent feelings in the audience; part of the audience loved it and an other part didn’t like it at all. But as for instance Shostakovich concludes in the book “Testimony: Memories of Dmitri Shostakovich”; the best composers are the ones over which the audience and critiques are arguing if the music is complete rubbish or absolutely fantastic. And this kind of argument was more or less what was going on after the concert, is felt like being part of the book “The rest is noise”. So after the concert I of course headed to the stamping ground of musicians in Helsinki; Urkki, for discussing different peoples opinions on the piece. Because these discussions are extremely interesting and you learn a lot from them. What a night it was!

After My Recital

Thursday the 15th of May. I can’t believe it’s all over! Well, not quite true, I still have my thesis dissertation tomorrow and have to write a 10 minute orchestra piece before the end of the month and hand in some tasks for graduating… But the concert! It’s over!

After I had hugged all my friends and family who came to the concert yesterday I got all my stuff (my backpack and two plastic bags) and went with my parents by car to my apartment. While my parents and grandmother greeted my rabbit I ate for the first time this day; Chinese food my mum had brought from a take-away! I was starving but had about 10 minutes to stuff in me as much food as possible and change clothes before I was off again.

The route of the night were all our stamping grounds: pub Tuoppi, Artturi and bar Gloria. When I stepped into Tuoppi the pub burn out into applauses. All my friends were already there and were seated and beaming at me. It was such a wonderful feeling in the air! I was so tired and wanted to talk to and thank everyone and it was so hard to “choose” whom to sit with.

After Tuoppi we went to Artturi, because that place serves food late. But at 2 AM also that place closed, so more or less the only option left (on the West side of the river) that was open until 4 AM was bar Gloria, so a decent number of us headed there.

At 5 AM  I was finally home and in bed and asleep! Thinking I would sleep nice and long I was quite disappointed to wake up at 11 AM and notice I couldn’t sleep any longer. (My body seems to have got used to 4h sleep a night…) Even though I should be preparing my PowerPoint presentation of the dissertation of my thesis for tomorrow, I couldn’t help my self and be simply lazy and do absolutely nothing at all until the afternoon.

At 17 o’clock I headed to the Tampere Hall: they are planning on founding a new small society for students which will be called “The Young Listeners Club” and wanted to hear students opinions about what this club could be like and what we would be interested in. Because I am absolutely terrified by how “traditional” and boring (!!!) theprogramme of Tampere Philharmonic is in autumn 2014, I felt I really needed to attend this meeting for getting my voice heard about this terrible matter. In autumn 2014 there is exactly TWO new piece on the programme! More or less everything else is Shostakovitch, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky! Yes yes, I do like these composers as well, but it’s a bit boring to only listen to these a whole season, don’t you think? Like if the world wasn’t full of music!

After the meeting I listened to the concert of Tampere Philharmonic which included Ligeti, Prokoffiev's 3rd piano concerto and Tchaikovsky’s first symphony (as if it would be foreboding next autumns programme). I was so tired in the concert I had a really hard time to concentrate and listen.

Have a listen to Prokofiev's 3rd piano concerto, just because

 it's such a great piece, performed by Yuja Wang
(although she wasn't performing in Tampere).

After the concert I went home for planning tomorrows thesis dissertation. While skimming through my thesis I noticed a terrible error: I had forgotten to paste the whole conclusion into the rightly formatted thesis that I had sent of to my opponents!  (Well, in a way I’m not that surprised, my thesis is all together 75 pages and I have been very tired lately, so a mistake was almost bound to happen…) So I quickly sent of the conclusion of my thesis to my opponents, hoping it wouldn’t pull down my grade too much!

Orchestra Rehearsal and Friends

Saturday the 10th of May. The day began with a bad omen: I got a message that one of my musicians (a friend of mine) had tried to call me at 4 AM. So I sincerely hoped my musician wasn’t drunk or hungover by 11 AM, the time the “Landet som icke är” rehearsal was due to begin.

But my fear was right. We knew from before we would have already three musicians missing due to concerts in other cities. But at 11 AM an other three musicians were not either there, so we were only one violin and one cello (out of a string quintet + trumpet and percussion) and one singer (out of two)! Luckily the contrabass came only a few minutes late, but unfortunately he had to leave early due to an other rehearsal.

So the whole rehearsal was a disaster. There were far to few musicians for actually making any progress and my singer pointed out very correctly that she didn’t get most of the cue notes as so many instruments were missing. The whole rehearsal was very useless and frustrating and all musicians were so annoyed with the musicians who hadn’t shown up just because they didn’t wake up. The singer had arranged a baby sitter for this rehearsal and she was absolutely furious, with very good reason. So it was a very hard situation; I felt very abandoned by my friends who hadn’t shown up, but on the other hand I can’t be very angry at them either, as it’s nice of them that they are agreeing to play for free in my concert although they have a lot of other things to do that are more important for them (like exams etc).

Anyway, at 13 o’clock we had our second orchestra rehearsal of my song cycle “Dagbok”. This rehearsal went much better. Most people showed up, even kind of on time, and my cellist Taina Raittila who wasn’t able to come to this rehearsal had arranged a substitute for her self for this rehearsal! It was so nice of her to do that and I was so happy!

I concentrated on practicing small sections and parts of the piece. Stuff like timbre in the first two movements and rhythm and exactness in the third and fifth movement. My conducting went surprisingly well. I feel my conducting is very much depending on luck, some days it’s okay and some days I’m just dreadful! So I was very happy this wasn’t one of those dreadful days.

We practiced very intensely and were quite soon ready. After that we had coffee and tea (those who wanted to stay for a while) and I said aloud “Wow, the orchestra sounded already so good today, especially compared to last week” to which my cellist friend Peter Gospodinov replied “Well, of course, we have practiced, it’s supposed to sound better then!”

After having cleaned up everything from the rehearsal (putting chairs back in order, bringing back notestands to the main building, putting away the coffee and biscuits) I went and had a cup of tea with a few friends in the closest bar (and also stamping ground) Tuoppi and after that headed home and finished my resumé of my viola piece Loco for the upcoming Korvat Auki RRR-concert 17.5.

I called my friend Matilda to ask what she was up to, as I for once had a FREE EVENING! Poor thing had a headache so I offered to bring her a painkiller, as she didn’t have any at home. She said “would you really do it for me?” on which I replied “If the person who has spent so many hours helping me with my thesis, arranging concerts and happens to be maybe the most important person for me in this town, that person could ask me to do almost anything, and the least I can do is bring a painkiller about 5 blocks to you!”  So I sat for a few hours at Matildas place and we had tea, while her headache got slightly better.

Then I called my friend and neighbour Jenni and went over to her place and watched…. EUROVISION! Yes, you read correctly. It is a bit like a tradition to watch it for me, I have done it more or less regularly since I was a little kid. And it was quite fun this year as there was so much politics going on: everyone booing in the audience every time Russia came on stage or was named (due to the Ukraine crisis) and everyone cheering on the transvestite Conchita Wurst from Austria, who also then won the whole Eurovision (which made Russia furious)!

After that Jenni was tired but I texted my friend Bella and we both felt like going dancing. So I went home and changed clothes and then we went with Bella to the nightclub Gloria at about 2 AM! We had so much fun and danced until the club closed (3:30). Then I walked to Bella's place and we talked about life until 7 AM, after which I went home for getting some sleeeeeeep!

Vappu Eve

Wednesday April 30th, Vappu eve. First of May (Vappu in Finnish) is a National holiday, so the evening before (today) is maybe THE biggest party in Finland (Yes, bigger than New Years Eve or Independence Day, maybe because both of them happen to be in Winter when it’s freezing in Finland…)!

Anyway, my day began at 9 AM with my final exam in score reading. I had two hours time to learn this wonderful extract from Wagners Tristan and Isolde, I really enjoyed my two hours practising for the exam! After two hours my teacher Tero Lanu came and I played my Wagner once for him. Then he gave me a sight reading task: a non tonal piece in three voices of which one was a transposing clarinet and the other was a bassoon which occasionally changed to C-clef! It was an absolutely horrible sight reading task and I thought I did awfully! But Lanu said “Oh well, it was quite a hard task, and your Wagner was very good, so you get a 5/5 anyway.” So I am very happy!

After my exam I had lunch and then headed to Pyynikkisali to listen to the TEMA-quartet play Shostakovitch. This concert was a chamber music exam of my friend and viola player Marjukka Manners. Naturally I enjoyed the performance, because I LOVE Shostakovich!
After this I went home and had to take a nap, before I headed off to Tampere Hall. Both Vappu concerts (30.4 and 1.5) are completely sold out, so I came just in time when the concert ended and stood again by the door and handed out flyers to my upcoming composition concert on the 14th of May. Today it was a lot colder than the last time I was handing out flyers, and the audience today wasn’t quite as happy to get flyers as they were last Friday…
After the audience had left I went and sat for a while with my friends from the Tampere Phil on the terrace of Tampere Hall, but when the sun was gone it was so freezing that most of us hurried to the bar & restaurant Telakka. At 1 AM I was so tired and honestly had the intention of going home, but I called Matilda, who was at a house party, which happened to be located just on my way home, so I dropped by there for a couple of hours as well.

Found this inspiring phrases at Annikas place.
"Remember: Water the flowers, do the laundry,
save the world, bring aways the rubbish. Loesje"

Korvat Soi!

Saturday April 26th. Today was the second ‘traditional’ Korvat Auki (Open Ears) concert in Tampere, but this time in Pirkanmaanmusiikkiopisto. (Read about the first one here).  What I mean by traditional is a concert where all the music is only composed by Korvat Auki members and then performed by students. The very first Korvat Auki concert in Tampere was a concert with the German new music group Neophon ensemble in September 2013. In the concert Neophon ensemble played a contemporary programme including three pieces by Korvat Auki composers, and the same programme was played in both Helsinki and Tampere (as well as in Riga, Tallinn and Rostock!). But like I said, today we had a “typical” Korvat Auki concert containing 100% new music by young Korvat Auki composers.

Cellist Aino Palosaari. © Cecilia Damström

Korvat Auki composer Lauri Supponen having a laugh with his musicians,
clarinetist Andreas Heino and violinist Heidi-Annina Nikkilä.
© Cecilia Damström

The programme of today was:

Lauri Supponen: Da Camera

violin: Heidi-Anniina Nikkilä, cello: Taina Raittila, flute: Jenni Halonen, clarinet: Andreas Heino

Lasse Kallioniemi: Kristalli (first performance)

flute: Anu Miikkulainen, cello: Juho Nissi

Kalle Autio: Kolme laulua Santōkan teksteihin (first performance)

soprano: Piia Rytkönen, piano: Tuomas Salokangas

Saper Şahbaz: For Naima (first performance)

violin: Elias Koivisto, cello: Aino Palosaari, piano: Tuomas Salokangas

-intermission-

Sebastian Dumitrescu: Autoportret

electric-bass: Sebastian Dumitrescu

Matei Gheorghiu: Ihana surullinen ilta

soprano: Anna Ranki, piano: Tuomas Turriago

Dante Thelestam: Baba panda (first performance)

percussion: Henri Sakki ja Mauri Myllys

Charles Van Hemelryck: Grandes vacances

soprano: Hannele Taipale, piano: Jasper Koekoek

Pianist Tuomas Salokangas and soprano Piia Rytkönen
before the first performance of Kalle Autios three songs,
where the soprano gets to hit a gong!
© Cecilia Damström

All the musicians and composer of the Korvat Soi! -concert (part 1).
© Cecilia Damström

All the musicians and composer of the Korvat Soi! -concert (part 2).
© Cecilia Damström

We had good luck with the weather today, the building suited the occasion really well and generally everything went very well today! Everyone was in a calm but good mood. Originally I was supposed to be the concert producer, but I had to back out and luckily Matilda took over the task! In my defence I have already produced two Korvat Auki concerts in Tampere this year. Matilda was a superb concert producer! She had to coordinate 17 musicians but she was as calm as a summer breeze all the time, I admired her serenity greatly!

Musicians already feeling releaved in the intermission.
Pianist Tuomas Salokangas, violinist Elias Koivisto and flutist Jenni Halonen.
© Cecilia Damström

Korvat Auki composers Saper Shabaz, Charles van Hemelryck
and Matei Gheorghiu. © Cecilia Damström

I really enjoyed the concert today! Maybe it was because I had sufficiently ‘little’ to do considering arrangements in this concert (only flowers and sparking wine were my responsibility), so I could fully enjoy the music. Moreover I was in a really good listening mood this afternoon. I liked all the pieces in the concert but my two favourite composers of today where Supponen and Autio. Have a listen to Supponens DaCamera here! And for more pictures of the concert click here.

Concert producer and composer Matilda Seppälä and me.
© Lauri Supponen

Composer Lauri Supponen, composer Sebastian Dumitresctu
and soprano Piia Rytkönen. © Cecilia Damström

Korvat Auki composers: Me, Sebastian Dumistrescu and Charles van Hemelryck

After the concert most of us headed to the ‘Egyptian restautant’ JallaJalla (more like a Kebab-Pizzeria) for getting some food, and after we spent the rest of the evening in our stamping ground Bar K.

We were all quite exhausted, so already at 2 AM I headed home with my guests Dante, Lauri and Matei. I was very happy to hear Matei say that he thought this was the best Korvat Auki concert ever!

Flyers and a Birthday Party

Friday April 25th.

Tonight, as usual, I went to listen to the Tampere Phil. The programme was:

Eugene Tzigane, conductor

Ismo Eskelinen, guitar

Ravel: Spanish Rhapsody

Fagerlund: Transit, guitar concerto

Debussy: Images

After the concert I at once hurried out so that I would be outside in time to hand out flyers for my concert while people were leaving the Tampere Hall. The conductor unexpectedly did an extra number (which isn’t too common to do with a whole orchestra), which I ended up missing, but at least I was at the door in time.

I managed (with a little help from some friends) to hand out around 300 flyers tonight! I was pleasantly surprised about how positive the attitude of the audience was towards flyers! My hands were quite through frozen (it was about 8 degrees Celsius outside) so I sometimes had a hard time separating the flyers from each other and people would stop and wait so that they got their own flyer! Some would read aloud in a surprised voice name of the concert, which is in Swedish ‘Landet som icke är’, translated to ‘The Land Which Is Not’, and some turned back and asked me “So what is this?” and I would reply “This is my own composition concert coming up in May, with an orchestra, a choir and ensembles and it’s completely free!” on which people usually reacted “Oh your own concert? That is so nice! Thanks for the invitation!” After the audience had stopped flowing out I went to Tampere Hall’s café and said hello to my friends from the Tampere Phil and also gave them an invitation. I also had the very inconvenient task of trying to persuade a few viola players to come and play in my orchestra, for free, because we don’t have enough viola players in our school… I’m not quite sure if I managed yet, we will see.

Tonight I was invited to two parties. I started off with my pianist friend Lotta Penttilä’s birthday party. By the time I was going to go to my composer friend Henri Sokka’s moving out party, they had already gone to a bar, so I joined them. We went to Ruby & Fellas, which is at a very pretty location down by the river in Tampere city centre. It’s quite large, and they have one part for live music and a more regular and quiet room (with a billiard table) but most peculiar (and funny) of all: a small karaoke room in glass with a door that you can close so you don’t hear anything out from the room. I thought this was very practical, as the people who enjoy singing karaoke can occasionally drop in to the room, while people who don’t like karaoke can happily sit outside without suffering.

Tampere Biennale Day 4 (Part 2: Lecture Concert II, Music and Darkness & Klubi)

Saturday April 12th. At 19.00 the second lecture concert called Music, Mathematics and Everything took place in the Tampere Cathedral.

“Professor of Space Astronomy Esko Valtaoja and organist Susanne Kujala will discuss the fascinating historical ties between music, mathematics and astronomy, with intriguing insights into the development of Western music and science.”

TampereRaw and Uusinta ensemble. © Maarit Kytöharju

The programme was:

Esko Valtaoja – speaker, Susanne Kujala – organ, Veli Kujala – electronics, TampereRaw, Uusinta Ensemble

Olli Virtaperko: Dawkins (2007-2008)

I Kopioitujat (Replicators)

II Kohti monimuotoisuutta (Toward Polymorphism)

III Ikuiset kierteet (Immortal Coils)

13'-15'

Vincenzo Galilei: Dialogo (1568)

Johannes Kepler: Sfäärien harmonia (1609)

Juhani Nuorvala: Prélude non retouché (2012)

Veli Kujala: CybOrgan (2012)

I –UM

II On the Strand of Remoteness 

III Warp

21'



Duration approximately 90 min, no intermission.

TampereRaw and Uusinta ensemble. © Maarit Kytöharju

Tampere Cathedral is a very nice place for having concerts; it is very big, has a long echo and is decorated by one of the most famous Finnish artists Hugo Simberg. The only minus I can think of is that the wooden benches are very uncomfortable, so I found it quite hard to sit the whole 90 minutes without an intermission. I didn’t find this lecture as interesting as the first lecture about language and music.

Juhani Nuorvala, Susanne Kujala, Esko Valtaoja,
Veli Kujala and Olli Virtaperko
© Maarit Kytöharju

After this concert we hurried with my composer friend Dante Thelestam to the Music Hall of the Old Library House to hear the second concert by Kairos Quartett called Music and Darkness. I was actually really tired and had a headache (because it had been such a long day) but the concept of this concert was so intriguing that I “had” to go! And I’m glad I went!

“The second recital of the Kairos Quartet will present an anti-statement to the visual theme of the festival, as „In iij. Noct.”, the Third String Quartet of Austrian composer G.F. Haas, lasting about one hour, will be performed (and heard) in complete darkness.”

The programme was:
Georg Friedrich Haas: String Quartet no. 3 „In iij. Noct.” (2001)

Duration approximately 60 min, no intermission.

The hall was absolutely cramped full of people, because this is a rarity you don’t get to hear often. The reason it is performed so seldom are easy: it’s very hard for the quartet to learn this contemporary piece by heart and you can’t look at your fellow musicians at all, and it’s hard to find a venue where it is possible to get complete darkness. Because not everyone feels comfortable in complete darkness we were prepared for the concert by an introducing 3 minutes of absolute darkness in silence. After the 3 minutes the lights were dimly lit and people who felt uncomfortable were asked to leave now, because during the next 60 minutes that is not an option. I think no one wanted to leave the room.

It actually was an absolutely amazing feeling sitting in complete darkness, I can’t remember ever having been in such a place. It felt weird closing and opening my eyes as it was the whole time as black anyway. And the way you were “forced” to listen was also interesting, you had no other option than just listen 100%. (But the dark room and the headache were also challenging me with a non-electable second option: sleep.) I can’t actually say if I liked the piece or not, but still it has left a very big imprint on me and is one of the most memorable concerts I have ever been to.

After the concert I went with Dante to Klubi for the last gig of the evening. Dante only stayed four half an hour before taking the 23.06 train back to Helsinki. Apparently most other visitors from Helsinki also took that train because Klubi was quite empty and there were only few people I knew, which isn’t that common on the last evening club gig of Tampere Biennale…

Stringpurée Band © Cecilia Damström

The programme for Klubi was
21.00 Humus
22.00 Stringpurée Band
23.00 Lauri Porra Band

Lauri Porra Band © Maarit Kytöharju

Lauri Porra © Maarit Kytöharju

So after midnight when the gig was over people started heading home and I was also thinking of heading home. But the night ended late as usual.

Biennale day 2 (Bus Number 13, Pretty Intense, Kairos I)

Thursday April 10th. A free morning and noon! So I had for once time to sleep enough, do all my dishes (which have been waiting for about 10 days…) and clean up my room! Because tonight two friends from Helsinki, composer students Lauri Supponen and Niilo Tarnanen will be staying at my place, so it was about time to get my room in some kind of order!

My free-pass to the festival. ©C.Damström

At 17.00 it was time for the third and last performance of Bus Number 13 in the Studio of Tampere Hall, this time part of the Tampere Biennale festival programme. Musically this performance wasn’t the best (at least in my pieces there were very many mistakes, like for instance in one of the songs that was supposed to be in three voices (harmony) the middle voice got lost, so partly it was only in fifths instead of major chords, which does sound very different from the original idea…). But both the director Auvo Vihro as well as one of our compsition teachers Jouni Kaipainen said this anyway was the best performance because it was the most intense and coherent. The audience was great and laughed and applauded loudly their content. (This is something that happens quite rarely in Finland, especially in concerts of classical or contemporary music, maybe mainly because Finns generally are quite shy and don’t show their emotions very much.)

Bus Number 13 at Tampere Biennale ©Maarit Kytöharju

My song "Erottelua" ©Maarit Kytöharju

My song "Anglisms" with Tiitus Ylipää "driving" the bus number 13.
©Maarit Kytöharju

My song "Word classes".
©Maarit Kytöharju

All of the musicians and composers in Bus number 13. From the left:
Jarkko Pajunen, Pauli Marttinen, me, Saara Lehtonen, Eero Kokkonen, Andreas Heino,
Roope Mäenpää, Antti Kerosuo, Alina Lehti, Meerika Ahqvist, Tiitus Ylipää,
Heidi-Annina Nikkilä and Anni Härkönen.
Photo ©Maarit Kytöharju

After the great show all people who had been on stage were really tired. Because it was the last show we had to pack everything away, all lights and microphones and cables and chairs etc.

At 19.00 it was time for the next festival concert, Pretty Intense (Tiukahkoa settiä) in the small concert venue of Tampere Hall. This was a chamber music concert by Uusinta Ensemble. The concert was accompanied by a light “show”, which consisted mainly soft changing colours of light on the walls.

The programme was:

Klaus Wiede: Oh, These Disgusting, Lovely Lovers (first performance in Finland)


Antti Auvinen: Kaarea (2006 / 2007)


Jarkko Hartikainen: magnetic (2011 / 2013)


Kimmo Kuokkala: Ocra (2005 – 2007)


Antonin Servière: Kumahdukset (first performance, commissioned by the Tampere Biennale) (2014).

Duration approximately 75 min, no intermission.

Jukka Iisakkila, conductor


Malla Vivolin – flute, Markus Kaarto – clarinet, Lauri Kilpinen – trombone, Väinö Jalkanen – piano, Antti Suoranta – percussion, Maria Puusaari – violin, Teija Kivinen – violin, Max Savikangas – viola, Markus Hohti – violoncello

Uusinta Ensemble ©Maarit Kytöharju

Uusinta Ensemble ©Maarit Kytöharju

I have to say, this concert actually was pretty intense, and I had at this point a terrible head-ache so unfortunately I can only conclude that I enjoyed the concert although I wasn’t able to absorb very much.

At 21.00 it was time for the last concert of the day, Kairos I – Discipline and  Fantasy at the small but cosy Student Theatre on Itsenäisyydenkatu. This concert concentrated once again on Biennales theme of the year: combining visual arts with music. So after Haapamäkis String Quartet, we were presented four silent films to which the Kairos Quartet (from Berlin) improvised.

The Kairos Quartet ©Maarit Kytöharju

The Kairos Quartet ©Maarit Kytöharju

The Kairos Quartet ©Maarit Kytöharju

The programme was:

Kairos Quartett (DE)

Sampo Haapamäki: Connection (2007)

Silent films by Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp (improvisation)

Films: Le retour à la raison; Emak bakia; Anemic Cinema; L’étoile de mer © Kuvasto. Duration approximately 70 min, no intermission.

The Student Theatre was completely full, every single place was occupied and extra chairs had to be brought in. When the quartet accompanied the films they didn’t only use their instruments in every thinkable way, they also used other things for making noises, such as for instance an old fashioned car horn and rubber toy pigs (which made a grunting noise). One of the sounds I liked especially much was when the violin moves its bow in slow circles over the strings with a lot of pressure, which produces a kind of grinding sound.

The Kairos Quartet improvising to a silent film.
 ©Maarit Kytöharju

After the concert most of the festival attendees moved on to pub Soho. (This pub had been chosen because their kitchen is open late.) I happened to sit beside the producer of Tampere Biennale, Minnakaisa Kuivalainen and we had a long chat about concert and festival arrangements and how the festival had gone so far. It was very soothing to hear that it always seems to be a lot of last minute arrangements in every festival, however professional it is arranged.

The fun thing about festivals is that you not only get to make new friends but also get to meet old friends which you otherwise see very rarely. Tonight for insance I got to meet my friend, pianist Väinö Jalkanen whom I last saw almost 2 years ago while I was studying in Berlin for the summer. Väinö, who plays in Uusinta Ensmble and had performed earlier this evening, studies at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin, but is this year an exchange student at the Liszt Academy of Budapest. Having been an exchange student my self (at the Conservatory of Valencia) it is always fun to hear all the anecdotes of friends about what it’s like getting accustomed to new traditions and bureaucracy.

When the bar closed (at 2.30) we were (for once) sensible enough to go straight home with my guests Niilo and Lauri for getting some sleep. But what a great second day at Tampere Biennale it has been!