Two Premieres This Week

Monday, the beginning of a exciting week and also an exciting month! This week two world premieres, 20 minutes each!

Both are also going to be live streamed, so no need to risk getting Covid19 even if you want to hear it! If you can’t go to the music, music will come to you instead! 😍

Friday it’s the fifth anniversary of the amazing Kokonainen Festival! At this years festival my latest piano quintet “Helene - Nuances from the life of Helene Schjerfbeck” for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and piano will get it’s world premiere.

It will be performed by the amazing musicians Heli Haapala (principal flute in Lapland Chamber Orchestra ), Kristiina Salmi (oboist at the Finnish National Opera), Pekka Niskanen (principal clarinet at the Lapland Chamber Orchestra ), Jaakko Luoma (solo bassoonist at Tapiola Sinfonietta) and Doctor of Music Tiina Karakorpi! Friday 1PM in Janakkala Church .

On Sunday at the final concert of Pellinge Musikdagar my new song cycle “Framtidens skugga” to texts by Edit Södergran will get its world premiere at 3PM! It will be performed by the legendary world known mezzo soprano Monica Groop accompanied by the also highly acclaimed pianist Juhani Lagerspetz, both also professors at the Sibelius Academy.

Big thank you to all the grants that have made the making of these pieces as well as the performances of them possible! Thank you Taike for supporting “Helene” to come to life as well as The Finnish Cultural Foundation for supporting both my work as well as the wonderful Kokonainen Festival! Thank you Majaojasäätiö for supporting the work of writing the new song cycle “Framtidens skugga” and Svenska Kulturfonden for supporting the beautiful festival “Pellinge Musikdagar 6-9.8”. Thank you Yle Klassinen for broadcasting these events!

Wishing you all a great week as well! 😘🌸

Photo from 2018 by the one and only Marthe Veian

August Concerts 2020

New week, new project! Was great to take four days off and just enjoy the Finnish archipelago! 😎🌸Now looking forward to be working on a new orchestra piece for the first time since over two years! Oh, and August is soon here with four super exciting concerts including my music!

•7.8.2020 World Premiere of my new 20 minute Quintet “Helene - Nuances from the Life of Helene Schjerfbeck” at the superb Kokonainen Festival

•9.8.2020 World Premiere of my new 20 minute song cycle “Framtidens skugga” for Monica Groop at her festival Pellinge Musikdagar Pellingin Musiikkipäivät

•25.8.2020 My 30 minute “Requiem for our Earth” for choir, tape, light and video projection will be performed at this years UNM Tampere 2020: Music Ecology Festival in Tampere, being one of the representatives for Finland

•29.8.2020 My first and second Piano Quintets “Minna - Pictures from the Life of Minna Canth” and “Aino - Emotions from the Life of Aino Sibelius” will be performed at Tallinn Music Week 2020 by the amazing group TampereRaw .

Fingers crossed that Covid19 doesn’t come and postpones all the fun once again!

How Covid-19 Changed my 2020

This picture was taken exactly five weeks ago after I had given a guest lecture about my music at Malmö Academy of Music, a week during which I was working as a jury member for the new composition student admissions for my former university. How much life has changed since then!

Four weeks ago on Monday the 9th of March I flew home from Malmö, departing from Copenhagen airport. I was one of the only ones using a face mask at the airport, and happily unknowing my timing was quite perfect, travelling about 5 days before Denmark made a one month travel ban.

Since then all my concerts and events have been cancelled or postponed. I was looking forward to giving a speak about political music at Tampere Biennale's composer seminar, to hear my string quartet Via Crucis be performed at Heta Music Days in Lappland, to hear the wonderful conductor Christian Reif perform my piece Lucrum with W and last but not least: making my Australian debut with my piece Tundo! played by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra conducted by Håkan Hardenberger. In total 14 concerts with my music cancelled (so far). 

More over I started to have slight flu-like symptoms fours days after my travel and went into voluntary quarantine on Friday the 13th of March. The first 8 days I had not much fever (about 37.8°C), hardly any cough, just a little sore throat, some muscle pain, nausea and headaches and a lot of tiredness all the time. On day 9 my breathing difficulties started, which over time have become less but still not seized (now day 26 in total). I was twice checked up but as I'm not in the risk group, I wasn't tested for COVID-19. 

But despite this all above I feel I have been very lucky and am at good spirit. I'm in a privileged position considering work, as nothing has changed so far - working from home as usual. As soon as I'm able again, I will be working on a new piece for violin and piano for the one and only Pekka Kuusisto and Tarmo Peltokoski, can't wait!

My warmest thoughts are with all my friends in the different cultural fields as well as in other fields (for instance restaurants) who lost several month of work due to the pandemic. My thoughts are also with all the brave and hard working doctors and nurses out at the front line under enormous pressure and and endangering their own lives. And my sincere condolences to all who have lost loved ones to COVID-19.

Just wanted to give an update whats been going in my life and that I'm okay! Sending you all lots of love and hope! Take care!😘

Online Operas during Corona Lockdown

Here is a list of online opera performances I saw on Facebook, and felt this is something everybody (interested in opera) should know about!

Today also my bilingual children opera "Vickan & Väinö" was recorded for being broadcast later this spring! Sharing that with you as soon as it comes out!

But for now:

Metropolitan New York

https://www.metopera.org/

3.4 Les Pêcheurs de Perles

4.4 Macbeth

5.4 Norma

6.4 Aida

7.4 La Fanciulla del West

8.4 Falstaff

9.4 Parsifal

10.4 Gounod: Roméo et Juliette

11.4 Don Pasquale

12.4 Cosi fan tutte

Bayerische Staatsoper München

https://www.staatsoper.de/

Lucia di Lammermoor until the 8th of April

Parsifal until the 11th of April

Boris Godunov 18th of April to the 2nd of May

L’elisir d’amore 4.-18th of April

Die Frau ohne Schatten 11.-25th of April

Komische Oper Berlin

https://www.komische-oper-berlin.de/

8.4 Pelléas et Mélisande

18.4 La Bohème

1.5 Jewgeni Onegin

Deutsche Oper Berlin

https://www.deutscheoperberlin.de//de_DE/home

2.-4.4 Tristan und Isolde

4.-6.4 Fidelio

6.-8.4 Cimarosa: Die Heimliche Ehe

8.10.4 Aribert Reimann: Die Gespenstersonate

10.-12.4 Don Giovanni

12.-14.4 Don Carlos

14.-16.4 Carl Heinrich Graun: Montezuma

16..18.4 Wolfgang Rihm: Oedipus

Staatsoper Berlin

https://www.staatsoper-berlin.de/de/

03.04.2020 »Hippolyte et Aricie« Jean-Philippe Rameau

04.04.2020 Staatskapelle & Barenboim spielen Brahms

05.04.2020 »Così fan tutte« Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

06.04.2020 »Tannhäuser« Richard Wagner

07.04.2020 Staatskapelle & Barenboim spielen Brahms

08.04.2020 »Tristan und Isolde« Richard Wagner

09.04.2020 Staatskapelle & Barenboim spielen Bruckner

10.04.2020 »Parsifal« Richard Wagner

11.04.2020 Barenboim & Staatskapelle spielen Beethoven

12.04.2020 Staatskapelle & Barenboim spielen Bruckner

13.04.2020 »Parsifal« Richard Wagner

14.04.2020 »Violetter Schnee« Beat Furrer

15.04.2020 »Die Verlobung im Kloster« Sergej Prokojew

16.04.2020 »Der Rosenkavalier« Richard Strauss

17.04.2020 »Der Spieler« Sergej Prokofjew

18.04.2020 Barenboim spielt Beethoven-Klaviersonaten

19.04.2020 »Manon« Jules Massenet

Royal Opera House Covent Garden London

https://www.roh.org.uk/

Acis and Galatea, The Royal Opera, 2009 – 3 April 2020, 7pm BST

Così fan tutte, The Royal Opera, 2010 – 10 April 2020, 7pm BST

The Metamorphosis, The Royal Ballet, 2013 – 17 April 2020, 7pm BST

Gloriana, The Royal Opera, 2013 – 24 April 2020, 7pm BST

The Winter’s Tale, The Royal Ballet, 2014 – 1 May 2020, 7pm BST

The Salzburg Easter Festival

https://www.osterfestspiele-salzburg.at/videos-1833.html

Die Walküre, 2017, Available: 4 April, 12:00 to 6 April, 12:00

Otello, 2016, Available: 6 April, 12:00 to 8 April, 12:00

Cavalleria rusticana, 2015, Available: 8 April, 12:00 to 10 April, 12:00

Pagliacci, 2015, Available: 10 April, 12:00 to 12 April, 12:00

Arabella, 2014, Available: 12 April, 12:00 to 14 April, 12:00

Parsifal, 2013, Available: 14 April, 12:00 to 16 April, 12:00

Guest Lecture at the University of Helsinki

There is a first for everything - yesterday was a first for giving a guest lecture at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki! Pics or it didn't happen!

Photos by Hannah Kaihovirta

I talked about my educational repertoire - my three children operas Dumma Kungen, Djurens planet and Vickan & Väinö and about the challenges that have to be taken into account when composing educational material. I also talked about what my work as a composer is like and played a recording of my orchestral piece Tundo!. All the students were very focused the whole 90 minute lecture and asked enlightening questions. Big thank you the University of Helsinki for this opportunity and for inviting me!

Photo by Hannah Kaihovirta

USA Tour coming up!

Last year 2019 was not an easy year - mildly said. But I have high hopes on that 2020 will be different and have some exciting news:

I'm super excited about visiting USA for three and a half weeks, most of February! Going to Los Angeles, Colorado and New York! Extremely excited (and slightly terrified at the same time)!! 😁 Going to LA for visiting my favourite American Lucy McKnight , to Colorado Springs for hearing the US premiere of my piece "Tundo!" by Colorado Springs Philharmonic conducted by the amazing Christian Reif and to New York because it's anyway on the way home... 😉
Friends in LA, Colorado and NYC, let's meet up! 😍


And this pic is a throwback pic from 2017 when I was at Playa El Saler in Valencia, Spain - the closest pic to what I imagine LA will look like in February... 😏

Tundo! - Finnish Premiere by Kuopio Symphony

Kuopio Symphony giving Tundo! its Finnish premiere. Photo by Katariina Kummala

What an incredible week comes to an end! This week my piece "Tundo!" got its Finnish premiere December 5th and I made me debut with Kuopion kaupunginorkesteri conducted by the marvellous Jaakko Kuusisto! It was also the first time I visited Kuopio, which immediately became one of my favourite cities in Finland. Great concert hall, great and also friendly orchestra, wonderful atmosphere both at work and in town. I got to live on an address named after one of my idols, Minna Canth street, and after I got home my piece as well as the concert got a great review (of which you only can see a small part in the pic) in Savon Sanomat by Jussi Mattila. This was my last concert in Finland this season, quite an ending indeed!

Conductor Jaakko Kuusisto, me, accordionist Niko Kumpuvaara and
composer & percussionist Arttu Takalo after a successful concert!
Photo by Katariina Kummala

Great review (in Finnish) in Savon Sanomat by Jussi Mattila