The programme for the Summer Music Festival has been published

Dreamlands and Dystopias is the theme of Avant’s Summer Festival – several Finnish premieres in the programme

Chamber Orchestra Avanti! will once again take over Eastern Uusimaa, when the 38th edition of the orchestra takes place. The main concert programme for the festival has now been announced. The programme will be complemented during the spring with discussion events and evening events in the Avanti Club.

Dreamlands and Dystopias is the brainchild of composer Unsuk Chin and Maris Gothóni, Artistic Director of the Belgian National Orchestra and curator of several festivals.

“We have selected music from fearless artists who challenge and question boundaries, and music that can be thought-provoking, playful and stimulating at the same time. We want to showcase the diversity of music of our time. Composers from no fewer than 19 countries will be represented, including some of the most respected figures in contemporary music as well as new, emerging composers. The selected works reflect the visionary potential of music in times of uncertainty, and contain dream worlds as well as dystopian fears. The concert titles speak for themselves: ‘Dark Mirror’, ‘Musical Toys’, ‘Mimodramas and Horros Clowns’, ‘False Memories’, ‘Twisted Pearls and Four Headed-Nightingales’ and ‘Strange Rituals’.”

The festival will feature fresh music from contemporary composers as well as works that are already classics. The ensembles range in size from solo pieces to an orchestra of over 40 players. Avant’s soloists in Porvoo are sopranos Faustine de Monés and Tuuli Lindeberg, flutist Bjørnar Habbestad and pianist Mei Yi Foo. Emilia Hoving and Bas Wiegers will conduct the concerts.

The programme includes nearly twenty Finnish premieres and a world premiere of Antti Auvinen’s flute concerto commissioned by Avant. Finnish premieres will be heard on each day of the festival by composers including Unsuk Chin, Claude Vivier, Alberto Ginastera, Silvestre Revueltas, Sunghyun Lee, Hans Abrahamsen, Ondrej Adamek, Gérard Pesson, Marko Nikodijevic, Andrew Norman, Mikel Urquiza, Luke Bedford, Vito Zuraj and Wolfgang von Schweinitz. Other composers to be heard at the festival include Joseph Haydn, Heinrich Ignaz Biber, Lotta Wennäkoski, John Zorn, Jukka Tiensuu, Michael Daugherty, Helmut Lachenmann, George Benjamin, Peter Eötvös, Sofia Gubaidulina, György Kurtág, Chris Paul Harman and Frederick Rzewski.

A concert for children has long been an important part of Suvisoitto. For the summer festival Avanti! together with Red Nose Company, Finland’s first professional theatre group specialising in clowning, will produce a new version of the beloved Emperor’s New Clothes. The music for Avanti’s musicians will be composed and arranged by Marzi Nyman. The performance is bilingual in Finnish and Swedish.

The Avanti! club, which has already become a tradition, will be held again this year in the rustic and atmospheric Tehdassali in the Art Factory. The club is called Dark Mirror and during the evening you can listen to music, enjoy the unique club atmosphere in Porvoo’s summer night and enjoy the cuisine of the Taidetehta restaurant together with friends.

This year, the festival will once again feature an international masterclass in composition. The course, led by composer Jukka Tiensuu and composer Tomi Räisänen, will conclude with a composition concert featuring compositions by Avant’s musicians. During Suvisoito, the students will be able to work on their compositions together with Avant musicians and will thus receive important feedback from the musicians while they are still working on their compositions.

The main concert venue for the Summer Music Festival will once again be the Avanti Hall at the Art Factory. In addition, concerts will be held in the Pernaja Church in Loviisa and in the Factory Hall of the Art Factory.

Tickets for the Summer Concert will go on sale on Monday 27.3.2023 at 9.00 a.m. Tickets are sold at lippu.fi

Avant’s spring opens with a vocal concert that has become a cult hit

The spring season of the Avant Chamber Orchestra will begin with the closing concert of the Musica nova Helsinki festival on Sunday 12 March 2023 at 19.00 in Temppeliaukio Church, conducted by conductor Michael Wendeberg and featuring soprano Juliet Fraser as soloist. The concert will include music by Clara Iannotta, composer-in-residence at the festival, and experimental music composer Alexander Schubert.

The concert begins with Clara Iannotta’s We left her in a sack for fairies to reclaim, based on a poem by Dorothy Molloy, and Iannotta makes extensive use of non-traditional sound sources such as cardboard boxes, styrofoam and various bells.

Alexander Schubert’s music represents a 21st century current, combining artistic heritage with elements of jazz, techno and pop music. His work is also characterised by the use of modern technology as part of the music. Point Ones is a work for small ensemble and “extended” conductor. The conductor is equipped with motion sensors that allow him to conduct both the ensemble and the live electronics at the same time. The piece is not conducted in the traditional way, but with gestures, which means that the piece is slightly different each time it is performed.

Skin, which lends its name to the concert, is a work for soprano and orchestra by Rebecca Saunders, who has now achieved cult status. The work is considered one of Saunders’ major works, with moods ranging from intimate fragility to explosive eruptions. The soloist is soprano Juliet Fraser, for whom the work was written.

The concert, and the festival as a whole, will conclude with Kirmo Lintinen’s Ballata concertante. The piece takes a peek into 13th century Florence and the secular winds of the burgeoning Renaissance. The work plays with its historical roots and a moment later recalls a contemporary perspective. Lintinen himself has compared the impression created by the work to that of a tourist of his time travelling to Florence to experience the art of the Renaissance.

Musica nova Helsinki closing concert: skin
12.3.2023 at 19:00
Temppeliaukion kirkko