Summer Sounds XXXVI now published

Sassy music at the Art Factory

The 36th Avanti! Summer Sounds festival will present a varied concert menu in Porvoo from June 30 to July 4. The organisers are keeping an eagle eye on the latest official Covid regulations to ensure the safety of players and audience alike. “Only a very limited number of tickets will initially go on sale, but we’re hoping to increase the number the closer we get to the festival,” says Avanti!’s Executive Director Annika Mustonen. “But in any case we promise to stream some of the concerts.”

The Artistic Director of this year’s festival is Austrian composer, singer and conductor Heinz Karl “Nali” Gruber, with a theme – “Freche Musik – Sassy Music” – admirably in keeping with his style: music that is brazen or impudent. The music of Gruber, who made his international breakthrough with Frankenstein!!!, is simultaneously both popular and challenging, entertaining but serious.

In the leading role at the festival is postmodern music by Gruber and his Viennese contemporaries seasoned with some new Finnish works and a broad selection of chamber music. The programme will include the premiere of a violin concerto, Rakka, by Jouni Hirvelä with Eriikka Maalismaa as the soloist, and a work commissioned from pianist-composer Mioko Yokoyama. Saturday evening at the Avanti! Club on Saturday will be devoted to a swinging show of Avanti!’s hallmark genre – experimental chamber music – by Anna Meredith, Jukka Tiensuu and the Pipoka Trio.

Conducting the festival concerts will be Artistic Director Gruber, John Storgårds and Håkan Hardenberger, all able to switch with ease to the role of soloist, even in mid-concert. The traditional Baroque concert will view the Thirty Years’ War through works of that time in the magnificent Pernaja Church and with soprano Tuuli Lindeberg as the soloist. The festival’s opening fanfare will ring out in Porvoo’s Town Hall Square at 12 noon on July 1.

Ticket sale starts on Friday 21st of May at Lippupiste’s website: www.lippu.fi
Concert program is published here: https://avantimusic.fi/en/program/

AUF Day concerts continue in the summer in the Paavo Hall of the Helsinki Music Centre

Veli Kujala

Chamber orchestra Avanti!, UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra and Finnish Baroque Orchestra (FiBO) continue their AUF collaboration with a series of day concerts in the Paavo Hall of the Helsinki Music Centre. The Avant Accordion Expanded concert will take place on 10.6.2021 at 13.00.

The concert will feature works in which the accordion plays many roles, performed by the Avant String Quartet and accordionist Veli Kujala.

Adios Nonino, one of the most famous works by Astor Piazzolla, who celebrated his 100th birthday in March, will open the programme of concerts spanning eras and genres. Piazzolla composed the piece as a funeral piece for his father in 1959. Adios Nonino is written for bandoneon, as is Lotta Wennäkoski’s Amorti, the accordion version of which will be premiered at the concert.

Contemporary works include Hans Abrahamsen’s Nocturnes, the fourth movement of Wolfgang Rihm’s “patchwork” series Fetzen 4 and Georg Katzer’s snappy duo SaitenZungenspiel. Veli Kujala’s own composition, MiXi, is scored for harmonica and string quartet. The work will be performed as the closing number of the concert.

Antonín Dvořák’s bagatelles weld the concert programme together. The harmonic parts of the bagatelles will be played on the accordion, which belongs to the same family of free-form keyboard instruments as the harmonica.

The concert will be seated in a secure queue, tickets will be sold as non-numbered tickets and only a limited number of tickets will be available. To see the concert programme and buy tickets, please visit: https://musiikkitalo.fi/tapahtumat/auf-avanti-accordion-expanded/

The Music Hall group sales office is open Mon-Fri 10-14 on tel. 020 707 0426 and by email [email protected].

Looking ahead to the Summer Music Festival

In celebration of Easter and the sunny spring weather, here’s some happy news!

Avanti! looks forward to the coming summer with hope. The planning for the summer festival is in full swing, and the festival will take place in Porvoo from 30 June to 4 July 2021, one way or another. Due to the uncertain situation, we don’t dare to publish our programme just yet. We will let you know more about what the festival will look like in the spring. So stay tuned!

So now is the perfect time to revisit the atmosphere of last summer’s Little Summer Play with the compilation video below.

 

Looking towards the Summer Sound

Avanti! is looking forward to the upcoming summer. Our planning for the Summer Sound Festival continues and the festival will be held in Porvoo from the 30th of June to the 4th of July – one way or another! More information about our program will be published later in the spring. So stay tuned!

With this compilation video from the Mini Summer Sound held last summer, you can go back to those summer memories.

Black Box Music concerts 9.2.2021 go online

Chamber orchestra Avant Musica nova: Black Box Music concerts on 9 February 2021 will go online due to assembly restrictions that prevent the physical presence of the audience at the concerts. Those who have purchased tickets for the concerts are kindly requested to return them to https://web.lippu.fi/palautus

A free livestream of the concert will be broadcast on Tuesday 9.2.2021 at 18.00 on the Avant Chamber Orchestra Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_ffgc_HeqY

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the cancellation.