Review in Huvudstadsbladet

Tuesday June 3rd. Today Mats Liljeroos review appeared in Huvudstadsbladet. In the review he tells generally about the VocalEspoo choral festival and it’s new format. It tells about how the festival was opened with the choral composition competition concert, in which more excitement was added by revealing the winners first at the end of the concert. He also writes about how surprisingly traditional or even conservative the general esthetics of the winning pieces were, and asks the open question if it is a matter of the jurys taste or a general trend at the moment. Among his favorites Liljeroos names Teemu Tommola’s Appamado (shared third place in mixed choir), Juuso Vanonen’s The Second Coming (shared first prize), Cecilia Damström’s Credo (shared second prize), Lauri Mäntysaari’s Sensemayá (first prize for chirldrens choir) and Andres Lemba’s Sanctus (prize for for male choir).
Liljeros also points out that improvement could be made by also admitting the women’s choir as a category in the competition and moreover also adding the second official language (Swedish) to the concert programme, because the concert is anyway taking place in Finland’s second biggest bilingual city.