Exciting times with TampereRaw!

One Saturday afternoon Anna Angervo phoned me and asked me if it was okay for me if the ensemble TampereRaw would make a concert containing 45 minutes of only my music. I could hardly believe I had heard her right, it felt so unbelievable! 

The concert was to take place during Tallinn Music Week on the 28th of March.

Well, we all know what happened in March... I felt only a tiny bit disappointed because it had felt too good to be true in the first place anyway.

But then Anna called me again and said that Tallinn Music Week had been postponed to August! 

All of the summer we have been waiting: will there be a new travel ban to Estonia?

Keeping our fingers crossed apparently helped, because here we are at last! All safe and sound in Tallinn ready for the gig tonight at 6:30!

Photo by me :)

TampereRaw will be performing three movements from my Piano Quintet No 2 “AINO - Emotions from the Life of Aino Sibelius” and all of my first Piano Quintet “MINNA - Pictures from the Life of Minna Canth”.

In addition I will be reading aloud wonderful texts written by Kaarina Hazard.

Still finding it hard to believe it actually is happening! 🤩

HOPE YOU ARE HAVING AN AMAZING SATURDAY AS WELL!!!☀️☀️☀️

Photo at the terminal by Ville Hautakangas

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!

Tarja Halonen recommends

Next Sunday 1st of December there will be a panel discussion at 2PM about equality in music with Wilhelm Kvist, Eriikka Maalismaa, Kaarina Hazard, Juha Ahonen and yours truly moderated by Robin Lindeberg. And at 3PM TampereRaw will play a wonderful concert at Camerata at Musiikkitalo with the same topic, including my first piano quintet "Minna - Pictures from the life of Minna Canth". Oh yeah and our former president Tarja Halonen (in the picture) recommends this concert, so I guess you should come and listen! 😏

Maria Itkonen, former president Tarja Halonen and me. Photo by Anna Angervo