Raise your glass to the viol 31.10.2016

Mon 31.10.2016 at 7 pm
Club G LIVELAB (Pieni Roobertinkatu 16, Helsinki)

Jukka Rautasalo, leader and violin
Tuuli Lindeberg, soprano
Anthony Marini, violin and tenor violin
Ilkka Heinonen, horn and violone
Matias Häkkinen, harpsichord and pump organ

In a public house, one may find oneself in the company of rowdy sailors and coquettish harlots. If you wish to avoid trouble, it is best to stay out of the way of drunken soldiers and hot-headed brawlers. Of course, one must be watchful of pickpockets, beggars and tricksters, too.
Respected musicians held different sorts of soirées in urban taverns. Playing host to a new sort of entertainment – the public concert – such as The Mitre Inn in London and Zimmermann’s Coffee House in Leipzig were zones free from the influence of the clergy and the court.
This was life in the 17th century, the golden age of the viol.
In October, we will take our viols to the familiar scene of their ancestors: the pub. Where we go from there – let that be determined by the clientele and the atmosphere!

Tickets 20 / 15 € from http://www.glivelab.fi/

www.glivelab.fi

KLANG: So long! 9.12.2016

Fri 9.12.2016 at 19:30
Music House, Sonore Hall

Works by Sibelius Academy composition students for Avant Chamber Orchestra
Conductor Dima Slobodeniouk

In Klang 2016, Avanti will provide a platform for composition students at the Sibelius Academy. The concert features three pairs of works, each by two composers. The composers’ task is to make their pieces fit together and to think about their place in the concert. A large ensemble instrumentation is used, opening up the possibilities from solo to full sound. Composers need to be able to share ideas and meet each other, at least at the seams of the pieces. Where does one’s identity end and another begin?

Compositions:
Mioko Yokoyama – Walter Sallinen: new work
Saara Lindahl – Dante Thelestam: new work
Jaime Belmonte – Aleksejs Pegusevs: new work

Tickets including delivery 17,50 / 11,50 / 6,50 € from Ticketmaster or 15 / 10 / 5 € from the Musiikkitalo ticket office.

www.uniarts.fi

www.klanghelsinki.fi

Wellbeing Art-Poor Wellbeing Art at the Cable Factory 20.9. at 19:00

What elements do you need to strip away from art to make it a welfare art? The quacks are already justifying their companies.

Avanti! continues his series of political concerts, and in September he will perform for the first time in a long time at his home in the Cable Factory. The theme of the concert takes a humorous but serious look at the relationship between the welfare society and art. “Welfare Art-Poor Welfare Art” plays at the Merikaapel Hall on Tuesday 20 September at 19:00.

Conducted by conductor Jaakko Kuusisto , Avant’s soloists include singers Johanna Rusanen, Petri Bäckström and Jaakko Kortekangas.

The concert asks whether art can help when the welfare state is in a bad way. Culture is being cut, but the art of care is being invested in. Can welfare music be played in a minor key, should it be harmless and simple? Or is it independent and free art that is welfare?

See more information about the concert here.
Tickets 27,50/17,50€ www.lippu.fi

The Sound of Welfare 20.9.2016

Tue 20.9.2016 at 7 pm
Cable Factory, Merikaapelihalli

Avanti! Chamber Orchestra
Jaakko Kuusisto, conductor
Johanna Rusanen-Kartano, vocal
Jaakko Kortekangas, vocal
Petri Bäckström, vocal
Otaniemi Kaiku, choir
Pasi Heikura, host

The welfare state has taken ill as the commonplace goes. Can art provide the remedy?
Simultaneously with cuts being introduced, arts are being hailed as a form of therapy and funded with this end in mind. But should welfare music be cheery and simple? Can it be played in minor or does this fail to produce the greatest happiness to the greatest number? Could it be that a sign of true social welfare is art that is autonomous and free from all predetermined purposes?

It is a fact that music can cure many ills. Numerous studies have shown the positive effect of music on intelligence, learning and happiness. Of course, music may also allure you to deviate from the straight and narrow. In this concert, Avanti will both indulge in warning examples and demonstrate music’s healing power.

Carl Nielsen: At the Beer of a Young Artist op. 58
Giuseppe Verdi: Traviata. Act lll, prelude
Eduard Hermes: The Forest Man’s Drinking Song
Francis Poulenc: Banalités, No. 2, Hôtel
Kirmo Lintinen: Fitness opera, Leon aria
René Leibowitz: Marijuana variations non sériéuses
Franz Schubert: Erlkönig
W.A.Mozart: Bastien and Bastienne, aria “Diggi, Daggi, Shurry, Murry…”

***

Peter Maxwell Davies: Eight songs for a mad king, No. 1, The Sentry
Hildegard von Bingen: Ovirtus Sapientiae
Marain Marais: Gallstone surgery
Pyotr Tchaikovsky: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
Sean Beeson: Music for the treatment
W.A.Mozart: Symphony no 34 in C major, K 338 Allegro vivace, Andante di molto (piu tosto allegretto), Finale: Allegro vivace

Tickets €27.50 / €17.50, www.lippu.fi

Lotta Wennäkoski plans Avant’s Summer Play 2017

Suvisoitto_Lotta W_3Composer Lotta Wennäkoski is planning the XXXII Avanti! Summer Concert. The 2016 Summer Play attracted around 3000 people to a total of fourteen concerts or events in Porvoo and Pernaja.

Lotta Wennäkoski was the artistic designer of the Tampere Biennale in 2008-2010 and the seasonal composer of the Tapiola Sinfonietta in 2010-2011. Her compositions have been widely performed in Finnish and international concert halls and festivals, including Helsinki Festival, Musica Nova, Märzmusik Berlin, Warsaw Syksy, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Other Minds. Wennäkoski has also composed commissioned works for the Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.“The invitation to be the artistic designer of Suvisoito came as a flattering surprise. It is a great opportunity for me to design a festival that will feature chamber, orchestral, contemporary and classical music. What a lot you can invent!” says Wennäkoski.

The Suvisoito, which ended on Sunday 3 July, was designed by Dima Slobodeniouk, a Finnish conductor born in Moscow. Over the five days, a total of 14 concerts or events were organised in Porvoo and Pernaja, including six free events around Porvoo. In total, the festival attracted around 3000 people. The festival buses again transported the audience from Helsinki to Taidetehta and back.

The main sponsors of the festival were the City of Porvoo, Aktiasäätiö Porvoo, Neste, Porvoo Art Factory and Svenska kulturfonden.

Avanti! thanks its audience and supporters, and wishes a happy summer to all its friends!

Gamballa Kapakkaan 31.10.2016

Mon 31.10.2016 at 19:00
G LIVELAB -club (Pieni Roobertinkatu 16, Helsinki)

Jukka Rautasalo, music direction and viola da gamba
Tuuli Lindeberg, soprano
Anthony Marini, violin and tenor viola
Ilkka Heinonen, horn and violone
Matias Häkkinen, harpsichord and harmonium

In Kapaka, you may be joined by drunken sailors and swaggering whores. Drunken mercenaries and brawlers should be identified immediately and avoided. Pickpockets, beggars and swindlers are also on the move.

In downtown pubs, reputable musicians organise a different kind of evening. The musicians find a public space in the taverns that is beyond the influence of the courts and the church. The Mitre Inn in London and Zimmermann’s coffee house in Leipzig are the stage for a new form of gathering, the public concert.

This was the case in the 17th century, the golden age of the gamba. In October in Helsinki, we’ll be coming to a tavern with gambas to see what kind of company we’ve found ourselves in. That’s where our music begins!

Music: Henry Purcell, John Eccles, Orlando Gibbons, Tobias Hume, Olli Virtaperko, as well as folk songs and beggar opera.

Tickets 20 / 15 € from http://www.glivelab.fi/

www.glivelab.fi

Rite 18.4.2016

Mon 18.4.2016 at 19
Temppeliaukio Church

Chamber Orchestra Avanti!
Juho Laitinen, cello
Tomas Djupsjöbacka, conductor

Giacinto Scelsi: Quattro pezzi per tromba sola I
Henry Purcell: The Queen’s Funeral March
Pierre Henry: Variations pour une porte et un soupir: 4. Eveil
Jukka Tiensuu: Kalasi
Pierre Henry: Variations pour une porte et un soupir: 8. Comptine
Henry Purcell: Pavane & Chacony
Otto Luening: Low Speed
Giacinto Scelsi: Quattro pezzi per tromba sola II
Marin Marais: Sonnerie de Ste-Geneviève du Mont de Paris
Jukka Tiensuu: Concerto for electronic cello and ensemble

Music embraces all that the human needs. From nursery rhyme to funeral and resurrection. Quickening, quietening, celebrating, surrendering. An electrifying cello, brilliant trumpets. Dancing, sighing and the peeling of bells. Age-old and contemporary in sweet symbiosis. (Jukka Tiensuu)

“Participation in rites integrates the individual into a social order both in one’s day-to-day relationships of life and in those celebrations of the collective which bind [one] to the social entity as a whole,” as the anthropologist Émile Durkheim once put it. The same could be said of Avanti’s Rite concert, stretching from ceremonious Baroque to futuristic celebration, and preparing the listener for the birth of the new electronic cello concerto by Jukka Tiensuu.

Wellbeing Art-Poor Wellbeing Art 20.9.2016

Tue 20.9.2016 at 19.00
Cable Factory, Submarine Cable Hall

Avanti!
Jaakko Kuusisto, conductor
Johanna Rusanen-Kartano, vocals
Jaakko Kortekangas, vocals
Petri Bäckström, vocals
Otaniemi Kaiku
Arto Vainio, bodybuilder
Pasi Heikura, plot

The welfare society is in a bad way, but could art help? Culture is being cut, but the art of care is being invested in. Can you play wellness music in a minor key, does it have to be harmless and simple? Or is it independent and free art that is welfare?

The concert begins with the diseases, vices and corpses. From the deathbed of a young artist, the story continues through lung disease to the Forest Man’s drinking song and the time when smoking was seen to have health benefits. The music takes a stand against gluttony and obesity, describes the hallucinations brought on by drugs, and mourns the death of a child who dies in his father’s arms when it is too far to get to a clinic. In the second half, the music will be care music. On stage, you’ll witness a urinary stone operation, hear how King George III reacts when he’s taken to a mental hospital, and enjoy some feel-good medieval church music. Among other things, the…

Music really is a cure for many ailments. According to researchers, music can boost intelligence, enhance learning and increase happiness. Music can also tempt you into bad ways and unhealthy habits. Avanti’s concert will provide cautionary tales, but also integrity and improvement. Come to an Avant concert and leave a better person!

 

Tickets including delivery 27,50 / 17,50 €, www.lippu.fi

 

PROGRAMME

Carl Nielsen: At the Beer of a Young Artist op. 58
Giuseppe Verdi: Traviata. Act lll, prelude
Eduard Hermes: Forest Man’s Drinking Song
Francis Poulenc: Banalités, No 2, Hôtel
Kirmo Lintinen: Fitness opera, Leon aria
René Leibowitz: Marihuana variations non sériéuses
Franz Schubert: Erlkönig
W.A.Mozart: Bastien and Bastienne, aria “Diggi, Daggi, Shurry, Murry…”

***

Peter Maxwell Davies: Eight songs for a mad king, No. 1, The Sentry
Hildegard von Bingen: Ovirtus Sapientiae
Marain Marais: Urolithotomy
Pyotr Tchaikovsky: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
Sean Beeson: Caring Music
W.A.Mozart: Symphony no 34 in C major, K 338 Allegro vivace, Andante di molto (piu tosto allegretto), Finale: Allegro vivace

Avanti! XXX Summer Sounds – Idyll / Wed-Sun June 24-28, Porvoo, Finland

The Avanti! Summer Sounds festival will be celebrating its 30th anniversary on June 24-28, 2015. This year, the artistic planning of the five-day musical event is the responsibility of German conductor-composer Matthias Pintscher. The festival programme, titled Idyll, will consist of 14 concerts or events. Some of these will be held in local restaurants, and new this year are the club nights providing post-concert entertainment.

Festival program and ticket info here!

Avant’s Summer Play expands to Porvoo city centre with free concerts

Avanti! XXXI Suvisoitto – Just be / Wed-Sun 29.6.-3.7.2016, Porvoo and Loviisa

This year, the artistic design of Avant’s Suvisoito is the responsibility of Suvisoito concertmaster and conductor Dima Slobodeniouk. The five-day music event features 14 concerts and events that invite you to relax and be surprised in summer in Porvoo. New free city concerts will bring Suvisoito right to the heart of Porvoo.

 

Moscow-born Finnish conductor Dima Slobodeniouk is a very familiar partner for Avant and this is his eighth Summer Overture. For this year’s Suvisoitto, Slobodeniouk has chosen to bring music that acts as a counterbalance to the constant hustle and bustle.

 

“Nowadays we are in a hurry and things have to happen immediately. Fortunately, art and creativity do not fit this mould (fashion), and that is why art is necessary. We all need space to think, feel, act and just be. This year’s Summerfest programme is a kind of unspoken message: an invitation to come and be present and enjoy the space and the moment in music,” Slobodeniouk says, describing the Just be programme.

 

Dima Slobodeniouk is currently Artistic Director of the Galician Symphony Orchestra and in autumn 2016 he will also become Principal Conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Lahti International Sibelius Festival.

 

Free concerts lower the threshold to participate in Suvisoitto

 

The opening concert on 30 June will feature the German Jörg Widmann as both clarinet soloist and composer.

“Jörg Widmann is a phenomenal clarinettist and a brilliant composer whose works are commissioned and premiered by almost all the top orchestras and soloists in Europe and beyond. We are delighted to have him as clarinettist and composer for the opening,” said Slobodeniouk. Widmann’s music will also be heard at the closing concert of the Summer Festival on 3 July. The opening concert will also feature the glass harmonica, popular in the 17th century, which is making a comeback, and its contemporary verrophone.

 

Chloë Hanslip, the young violinist who delighted the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Dima Slobodeniouk in March, will play the European premiere of Michael Hersch’s Violin Concerto on Saturday 2 July and the closing concert on 3 July, as soloist in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Other soloists include Christa Schönfeldinger, glass harmonica, and Gerald Schönfeldinger, verrophone, of the Vienna Glass Armonica Duo, Avanti! Päivi Severeide, harp, and Mika Väyrynen, accordion, and Ismo Eskelinen, who will be the soloist in Sebastian Fagerlund’s Transit Guitar Concerto, premiered earlier on Friday 1 July. The Madrid-based flamenco group Camerata Flamenco Project will also perform at the same concert. In addition to Dima Slobodeniouk, the conductors of the Suvisoito will be Olari Elts and Andres Kaljuste.

Martti Suosalo, Seela Sella and Vuokko Hovatta, among others, will take to the stage of the Culture House Grand when the characters of the popular play The Nightingales perform Anna-Mari Kähärä’s hilarious compositions in a children’s concert on Saturday 2 July. The Grand will also once again host a composition workshop for young composers. The club concert on Saturday evening 2 July at the Zum Beispiel restaurant will bring together Camerata Flamenco Project and Anette Åkerlund, a singer representing the Finnish Roma singing tradition.

Suvisoitto is expanding further into the heart of Porvoo with a new four-concert series. “We want to bring Suvisoito to all Porvoo residents. The city concerts are small-scale and accessible events, but with guaranteed Avanti! quality musical content. The festival is being developed under the theme” Porvoo’s own orchestra “, and the low-threshold day concerts will provide an opportunity to deepen the relationship with the audience while respecting the concert tradition,” says Maati Rehor, Avant’s Executive Director, who is preparing her first Suvisoitto. Admission is free to the city concerts and to the Friday night Night Play at the Arts Centre on 1 July.

The festival buses will take concert-goers from Helsinki to the concerts in Taidetehta and back.

 

See the full programme: https://avantimusic.fi/suvisoiton-ohjelma/

 

 

Chamber Orchestra Avanti!

 

Chamber Orchestra Avanti! was founded in 1983 by conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, flutist Olli Pohjola and conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste. The orchestra’s aim is to provide the highest quality of music-making between enthusiastic and skilled musicians. Avant’s open-minded and flexible composition has made it possible to hear repertoire in Finland that would otherwise go unheard. The orchestra’s artistic director is clarinetist Kari Kriikku.

 

Avanti! offers music for the open-minded and takes its listeners on bold choices: the familiar seems fresh and new, the new soon familiar. Avanti! moves freely through different eras and genres, with a variety of line-ups and an uncompromising commitment to quality.

 

Avanti! Summer music

 

The annual summer festival Avanti! Summer Play was founded in 1986. The Summer Play is a cross-section of Avanti’s activities: new music of the Avanti! generation is in some ways the main focus, but the musical timeline ranges from baroque to premieres. The city of Porvoo has also long associated the arrival of musicians with its cultural heritage. Artistic directors of the Summer Festival have included violinist Pekka Kuusisto, conductor Hannu Lintu and composer Kaija Saariaho.

 

The main sponsors of the festival are the City of Porvoo, Neste and Aktiasäätiö Porvoo.

 

***

EVENT INFORMATION

Avanti! XXXI Summer Play

Wed-Sun 29.6.-3.7.2016, Porvoo

The venues are Pernaja Church, Porvoo Art Factory, Culture House Grand (Porvoo), Restaurant Zum Beispiel (Porvoo) and Porvoo Gymnasium. Updated information at www.avantimusic.fi.

 

TICKETS ON SALE FROM 31.3.2016

– Tickets for concerts €10-35 (including service charge). Reduced prices for children (0-16 years), students, pensioners, conscripts, conscripts and unemployed persons.
– Festival Pass 160/125 € (incl. service fee) includes tickets to all paid concerts.

– More information on tickets: https://avantimusic.fi/liput/

– Tickets in advance at Lippupiste, www.lippu.fi or call 0600 900 900 (€1.98/min + pvm, open daily 7-22). 2.7. tickets for the club concert can be bought in advance at the restaurant Zum Beispiel.

 

FESTIVAL BUSES

– Festival buses run from Helsinki to Taidetehta and back.

– For more information and timetables: https://avantimusic.fi/festaribussi/