Artists

Ondřej Adámek

The Artistic Director of Summer Sounds 2023 festival is composer Ondřej Adámek. 

Ondřej Adámek was born in 1979 in Prague. He has received commissions for orchestral, choir, ensemble, and vocal works, as well as music for instruments and electronics from prestigious ensembles, orchestras and festivals of contemporary music in Europe, such as Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra with Mezzo-Soprano Magdalena Kozena, Isabelle Faust and Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk, Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien, Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, Diotima string quartet, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, Agora festival, Donaueschingen festival, Witten festival, Warsaw Automn, Les Musiques festival – Marseille.

Adámek seeks out special playing techniques for classical instruments, creates new original instruments, with his vast knowledge of new possibilities for classical instruments, obtains a very specific sound colour that, together with a powerful rhythmic and solid formal architecture, creates very personal music with strong dramatic aspect.

Adámek graduated from the composition department of the Academy of Music in Prague in 2004 and from the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris in 2007.
Adámek came to Berlin in 2010 as a guest of the DAAD’s Berlin Artists-in-Residence Programme, where he has been living ever since.

His music was awarded the Synthèse Prize (Bourges 2002), Metamorphose (Brussels 2002, 2004), First Prize of Hungarian Radio, the Brandenburg Biennale prize (2006), the Prix Hervé-Dugardin – SACEM (2009), the Grand Prix Tansman (Lodz 2010), the Prix George Enesco 2011, and others. In 2014-2015 is Adamek fellow of Academie de France, Villa Medici in Rome.

Ondřej Adámek is also conductor and conducts his opera Alles Klappt in the festival Biennale Munich, also his opera Seven Stones in the opera festival in Aix-en-Provence. He conducts Deutsches Sinfonieorchester, Ensemble Moderne, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Kammerensemble Neue Musik, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, Oslo Sinfonetta, Ensemble 2E2M, Ensemble Prague Modern, Vocal Ensemble Accentus – Aix 21, Chorwerk Ruhr, Ensemble Ilinx, Ensemble of Orchestre National de Lille.

In 2018 Ondřej Adámek founded the vocal ensemble N.E.S.E.V.E.N, for which he also develops his own compositions and interdisciplinary programmes in cooperation with other ensembles. In his work as a conductor and leader of vocal ensembles, Adámek is interested in the authenticity and originality of the voice, as well as questions of movement, gesture and theatricality on stage.

Always interested in new forms of expression and sound colours, Adamek also develops his own installative musical instrument “Airmachine”.

https://ondrejadamek.com

Maria Ylipää and Friends

Maria Ylipää, a multi-talented artist with a magnificent voice, together with her dream troupe, offers her audience a concert of great emotions and moods that change on the fly, consisting of classics of stage and theatre music as well as composed Finnish poetry.

Maria Ylipää, together with some of the most renowned musicians in Finland, has been interpreting Piazzolla’s soulful and fiery pieces since 2018. Now Avanti takes up these songs with new arrangements by Marzi Nyman and Niko Kumpuvaara for the Avanti String Orchestra. Maria Ylipää, Niko Kumpuvaara, Marzi Nyman and Ville Herrala will join Avanti on stage.

Maria Ylipää, vocals
Marzi Nyman, guitar
Niko Kumpuvaara, accordion
Ville Herrala, double bass
Avanti Chamber Orchestra string ensemble

Ylipää & Friends with Avanti!: Piazzolla Sat 29.6. 18.00, Avanti Hall, Art Factory

Tami Pohjola

Tami Pohjola is one of the great emerging talents among young Finnish violinists. She has already won both international and national competitions and performed around Europe. She has been praised for her secure technique and her tonally and emotionally wide-ranging expression. Her humble attitude to music has won over audiences internationally. She won the first prize in the International Dinu Lipatti Violin Competition in 2019 and in the Kuopio Violin Competition in 2015. She also won the International Young Musician Competition in Estonia in 2009 and was second in the Juhani Heinonen Violin Competition in Jyväskylä, in the Junior Category in 2009 and as a Seniorin 2012.

Pohjola has performed as a soloist with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Kuopio Symphony Orchestra, Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra and The Hallé in Manchester, among others. She has worked with several renowned conductors such as Mikko Franck, Klaus Mäkelä, Sakari Oramo and Nicholas Collon.

Pohjola is also an active chamber musician. She has performed at several chamber music festivals, including Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, International Music Seminar Prussia Cove and Mantova Chamber Music Festival. She has also performed with renowned musicians such as Miriam Fried, Janine Jansen, Krzysztof Chorzelski, Ralf Gothon and Arto Noras.

Tami Pohjola started playing the violin when she was three years old and she studied with Grazyna Zeranska-Gebert in the Espoo Music Institute and then with Réka Szilvay at the Sibelius Academy. Since then, Pohjola has studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich with Mi-kyung Lee and currently she studies in Sion at Haute École de Musique Valais with Janine Jansen. Tami Pohjola plays a Guadagnini violin (1754) owned by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

In December 2023, Pohjola will make her debut as soloist with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tarmo Peltokoski, performing Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Violin Concerto. With the same concerto she replaced Pekka Kuusisto in the RSO’s Independence Day concert on Dec. 6th. In February 2024, Pohjola will again be heard as a soloist with the RSO, together with Julie Svačinová, performing Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, conducted by Jörg Widmann.

Tami will perform at the festival’s closing concert on 30.6.2024 at 18:00 in the Avanti hall at the Art factory.

Avanti! Quartet

The Avanti! quartet was founded in 1984 and is one of Avanti’s most important ensembles in the field of domestic and foreign music. The quartet’s repertoire includes both quartet classics and rarities from the twilight of history, as well as new and interesting contemporary works.

The Avanti! quartet includes violinists Anna-Leena Haikola and Eriikka Maalismaa, violist Riitta-Liisa “Pisku” Ristiluoma and cellist Mikko Ivars. The members of the quartet are active in key positions both in the Avanti Chamber Orchestra and elsewhere on the Finnish orchestral scene.

The Avanti! quartet concert will take place in Porvoo Cathedral on Friday 28.6.2024 at 18:00.

Adele Sauros Quartet

Finnish Saxophonist Adele Sauros is one of the most active saxophonists, composers and bandleaders within the European jazz scene. She frequently performs with her numerous high-level jazz-groups and projects from all around Europe such as Katu Kaiku, Superposition, JAF Trio and Jonathan Bäckström Quartet. She has been awarded numerous prizes and recently in 2021 she received the Finnish Emma prize of the best jazz album of the year with dummer Olavi Louhivuori’s band Superposition.

Combining the styles of Nordic and American jazz, the Adele Sauros Quartet was founded in 2012 and has released three albums Adele Sauros: I Paint You (Fresh Sound Records 2021, with an additional horn section and horn soloists), Adele Sauros: My Spontaneous Mind (2016) and Adele Sauros Quartet: It’s Who I Am ( 2014). They have performed at the most important jazz festivals in Finland and in the Nordic countries. The band recently represented Finland at the Nordic Jazz Comets event at the Montmartre Jazz Club in Copenhagen 2022 and did a tour in Sweden organized by the Finnish Jazz Association. 

The members of the group are established and virtuosic jazz musicians with open minds and the courage to deviate from the usual patterns and throw themselves into spontaneous improvisation.

Adele Sauros (tenor and soprano saxophones)
Toomas Keski-Säntti (piano)
Vesa Ojaniemi (double bass)
Tuomas Timonen (drums)

Avanti x Porvoo Jazz Festival: Adele Sauros Quartet
29.6.2024 at 21.30 (doors open 21)
Factory Hall, Art Factory