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

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Break: Nissinen exhibition in the cafeteria

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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

The Andy Warhol Exhibition

Sunday 18th of May. Upp after an other refreshing 4 hours, caught the regional train to Tampere with Matilda, dropped of my things at home and headed to the Sara Hildén Art Museum. At the museum they have at the moment (until the end of May 2014) a wonderful Andy Warhol exhibition going on! I have been planning on going to the exhibition since long, and today the percussion group Osuma Ensemble also had a concert there at 3 PM, so a perfect occasion to combine the two. The concert consisted of pieces that were either written by friends of Warhol or inspired by him. 

After the concert, that lasted for about 45 minutes, we stayed with Matilda and a few other friends for a walking tour around the exhibition. The one hour tour was absolutely great! I didn’t know much about Warhol, but he seems to have been quite an eccentric and difficult person, like many other famous artists…

In front of one of the paintings, that looked just like a big black square, the guide stopped and told us: “Once while I was having a guided tour around here and we stopped in front of this picture, a 10-year old girl stared for a very long time at this painting. After a while she said “It is a horse”. We were very astonished and thought first that “everyone can see what every they want to see in a painting”, but she insisted “Can’t you see? It is a horse!” and when I kneeled down and looked at the painting from her perspective I noticed she was right: when the light fell in the right angel on the black square, you could see there was a horse painted underneath, which had been covered completely by the black square, but which was  visible from a certain angle. So there we learn once again that children sometimes look much more thorough while looking at art than we grown ups.”

After the exhibition I went for evening mass, and then straight home and to sleep, at 20.30! Tomorrow I will have to start to work hard on my orchestra piece, but right now I just have to sleep!

Period Art

Saturday the 8^th of March, international woman’s day. Today my friend my friends that I know in Gothenburg, Elias Liebendörfer and Ferbie Chez (also singer/actor/bartender) were working so I entertained my self in Gothenburg, which wasn’t hard at all as there is so much culture going on!

I just strolled around and walked into a small art gallery called “urban artroom”, which I really liked. The people working there were the nicest ever and they had very interesting art. In the cellar there was an art exhibition about women’s period, so it was called “Period pieces”. The exhibition was about how taboo and “dirty” it is looked upon that women have a period, although it’s a really natural thing and blood is nothing disgusting at all. The exhibition had really beautiful pictures of blood in water. They were so nice I could even hang the pictures up on my wall (if I could afford to buy it)!