Korvat Auki Tampere!

Wednesday the 26th of March. Finally the concert day has arrived! I woke up with my right hand aching quite badly. At breakfast I could hardly move my fingers anymore, and was getting a bit worried about tonight’s concert… I should have had score reading today, but luckily my teacher couldn’t make it, which gave me a bit more time for practising and concert arrangements. I spent all morning trying to relax my sore right arm. I practised two times really slowly through my piece Piano Delirium for tonights concert, then I had to copy and send of a bunch of papers for work (at sea), lunch, went to buy flowers and sparkling wine for the concert tonight, back home for an other shower and putting on make up. I still finished of the speeches for the days concert and went through them and sent them to Matilda for getting them corrected and printed out.

At 16.30 I went to the concert hall Pietilän sali and met for the first time live the lovely Minnakaisa Kuivalainen, producer of Tampere Biennale. She is a blessing for this concert! Thanks to her we were fortunate enough to get Tampere Biennales graphic designer Manu Alakarhu to help us with the layout of the programme, got it printed etc.

At around 17 o’clock my musicans started dropping in for testing the acoustics and at around 17.20 also my composer friends Lauri Supponen, Jens Lindqvist, Dante Thelestam and Sergio Castrillón arrived, as an un-official Korvat Auki Helsinki enforcement and support team.

Preparing the loudspeakers for the concert

The whole concert went surprisingly well! We had no technical problems (even though we had electronic music in the program!), everyone showed up, all pieces went well, all composers were there to bow at the end of the piece, all my speeches went okay, we had exactly enough flowers for everyone, the concert was successfully recorded and there was more audience than expected, over 50 people! I was happy to notice there were many un-familiar faces as well, so also new people found their way to the concert! The only small minus was that there was a too few programme copies, so they ended halfway, and that the concert was 10 min longer than planned… But luckily I had planned to be a concert-host already before this happened, so at least everyone got to know who was playing what piece and written by whom. But everyone was very happy with the concert and with how everything went and Minnakaisa was positively surprised by the large amount of audience (in contemporary music standards)!

Me as a concert hostess

The audience before the concert began

Here is the programme for the Korvat Auki Tampere concert! (Sorry, this time only in Finnish.)

Korvat auki ry ja Tampering ry esittävät yhteistyössä Tampere Biennalen kanssa:

Korvat Auki Tampere!

Biennale soi Metsossa

Keskiviikkona 26.3 klo 18

Pietilä-sali, Pääkirjasto Metso

Tervetuloa ensimmäiseen Korvat auki –yhdistyksen sävellyskonserttiin Tampereella! Konsertti järjestetään yhteistyössä nykymusiikkiyhdistys Tampering ry:n ja Tampere Biennalen kanssa osana kolmipäiväistä tapahtumaa ”Biennale soi Metsossa”. Korvat auki ry:n konserteissa esitetään uusimpia teoksia nuorelta säveltäjäsukupolvelta sekä Helsingistä, että Tampereelta. Konserteissa kuullaan kamarimusiikkia, teoksia soolosoittimille ja elektroakustisia teoksia nuorten huippumuusikoiden esittäminä. Tervetuloa seuraamaan sekä Korvat auki ry:n että Tampering ry:n toimintaa kotisivuillamme www.korvatauki.net ja www.tampering.fi!

Ohjelma:

Henri Sokka: Pianosonaatti
 (säv. 2013)

I. "We're right behind you Altantis"

II. "Forward's the only way to go"

III. "If I forget Thee oh Earth"

Ville Hautakangas, piano

Matilda Seppälä: Itus – for solo violin (säv. 2013)

Tatuarttu Ruponen, viulu

Pauli Marttinen: Suite for Solo Fourth Horn (säv.2013) ke.

I. Vivo-Lento

II. Allegro

III. Alla marcia

IV. Adagio

V. Andantino

VI. Allegro (attacca)

VII. Grave

Ilona Keltti, käyrätorvi

Cecilia Damström: Piano Delirium
 (säv.2009-2010)

Cecilia Damström, piano

Sergio Andres Castrillón: Parade for a fuddle soul

nauhateos

Jens Lindqvist: Strukturen kitaralle ja nauhalle

Kalle Autio, kitara

Me playing Piano Delirium, Matilda turning pages for me

Pauli Marttinen and Ilona Keltti

Kalle Autio playing Lindqvist

Jens Lindqvist applauding his guitarist

After the concert mainly us composers and also a few musicians hung out for a while in our “backstage room”, before all going to our stamping ground, Gastro pub Tuulensuu. It’s a quite pricy but cosy candle lit pub sells a decent portion of fantastic potato wedges (best in town!) for only 4 euros! So most of us had a portion of potatoes and one glass (because most of us can’t afford more) and then many went already home. Or that is, my composer friend Matilda and I had a small disagreement about who had the right to use the composition studio now at night (as it’s open all night, which isn’t the case of the main building of the music conservatory), and as we both have deadlines drawing near we would both have needed the studio. But I argued my point that I let her have it yesterday, and I’m much more in a hurry now than her, because the parts for the orchestra version of Dagbok HAVE to be READY by tomorrow, while Matilda still has 4 days time for her deadline… Well, she was really nice and let me go to the studio today, which was life (=composition) saving.

Lauri Supponen raising a toast for Korvat Auki Tampere

Henri Sokka after the concert

Sergio Castillón and Lauri at Tuulensuu

The famous Tuulensuu potato wedges for only 4 euros!

Cheers!