Avanti! and the Finnish League for Nature Conservation

Avanti! and the Finnish League for Nature Conservation have started a cooperation in the form of the Idyllistä to disaster concert. Avanti’s biggest concert of the autumn will take place on 8 November at 19:00 in Merikaapelihall and all ticket proceeds from the concert will be donated to climate work through the Finnish League for Nature Conservation.

Commenting on climate change, the programme around this theme starts idyllically and moves towards disaster. The Avant Symphony Orchestra under the baton of József Hárs, baritone Tommi Hakala and the Otaniemi Kaiku male choir under Tapani Länsiö take to the stage. The concert will also feature interesting expert talks by Mikael Fortelius , Professor Emeritus of Evolutionary Palaeontology at the University of Helsinki, and Hannele Korhose, Research Professor at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

The proceeds from the concert will be donated to the Finnish League for Nature Conservation through its work against climate change. Tickets for the concert are priced in four different categories, from which the audience can choose the amount that suits them best. Ticket prices range from €10 to €250, so that everyone has the opportunity to attend the concert and at the same time support the work against climate change. Ticket sales are now open. Join us to hear the music and words about the current state of the climate and do some good at the same time!

“Global warming can still be halted and its adverse effects adapted to. But it will require unprecedented social change. At the moment, we are heading towards a climate catastrophe. It threatens everything we love. Everyone is welcome to join us in working for a viable planet,” says Hanna Aho, conservation expert at the Finnish League for Nature Conservation.

Tommi Hakala has collaborated with numerous conductors and has performed major roles in opera productions at home and abroad, and has performed actively around the world. In this concert, Hakala will interpret two recitatives and an aria from Joseph Haydn’s oratorio Creation.

The ambitious and versatile male choir Otaniemi Echo, together with the Avant Orchestra, will perform Albert W. Ketelbey’s orchestral work In Monastery Garden. Other composers in the concert include Sibelius, Adams, Scriabin and Scielsi.

Tickets on sale at: https://tixfi.fi/fi/avanti/buyingflow/tickets/12219/7638

Avant’s Climate Concert – From Idyllic to Catastrophe

Avanti! is organising a major climate change concert at the Cable Factory’s Sea Cable Hall on Tuesday 8.11.2022.The programme, which comments on climate change and is based around the theme, starts idyllically and moves towards disaster. The Avant Grand Symphony Orchestra under József Hárs, baritone Tommi Hakala and the male choir Kaiku from Otaniemi under Tapani Länsiö will take to the stage. The concert will also feature interesting expert talks by Mikael Fortelius, Professor Emeritus of Evolutionary Palaeontology at the University of Helsinki, and Hannele Korhose, Research Professor at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

The proceeds from the concert will be donated to the Finnish League for Nature Conservation through its work against climate change. Avanti! has priced the concert tickets in four different categories and the audience will have the opportunity to choose the most suitable one. Come and take responsibility and hear unique tunes and words about the climate.

Tommi Hakala has collaborated with numerous conductors and has performed major roles in opera productions at home and abroad, and has performed actively around the world. In this concert, Hakala will interpret two recitatives and an aria from Joseph Haydn’s oratorio, Creation.

The ambitious and versatile male choir Otaniemi Kaiku, together with the Avant Orchestra, will perform Albert W. Ketelbey’s orchestral work In Monastery Garden. Other composers in the concert include Sibelius, Adams, Scriabin and Scielsi.

Ticket sales:
You can choose the amount you want to donate: 10 € (student, conscript, under 18) / 20 € / 50 € / 150 € / 250 € (incl. snacks in the VIP area)

What? Avant’s Climate Concert – From Idyllic to Catastrophe
When? 8.11.2022 at 19.00
Where? Merikaapelihalli, Kaapelitehdas, Kaapeliaukio 3, 00180 Helsinki
Tickets: buy tickets here

Avant’s autumn is full of interesting concerts

The autumn season kicks off on 16 September, when Avanti! quartet goes on tour with the Red Nose Company. The Red Nose Company’s co-production Aleksis Kivi, which premiered at the National Theatre in spring 2022, will tour to Finnish theatres and will have its first premiere on 16 September at the Turku City Theatre. During the autumn, the tour will be seen in Turku, Tampere, Lahti and Jyväskylä City Theatres.

The AUF collaboration with the UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra and the Finnish Baroque Orchestra (FiBO), which has been ongoing since 2017, will continue this autumn. This time the orchestras will be joined by Rajattoman, who is celebrating its 25th anniversary. In a concert at the Music Hall on 20 September, the new and old musical worlds will meet in London, the homeland and New York. The concert’s moods range from intimate and delicate moments to uproarious communal music-making.

The children’s concert series Touch the Music, which started at Suvisoito in Porvoo, now continues in Helsinki. Long-time audience engagement professional Tuula Jukola-Nuorteva, visual artist Liisa Ikävalko and Avant’s musicians bring music within touching distance. During the autumn, children will be able to paint and feel the music while Avant’s musicians create an atmosphere with their music. The first musical painting session will take place on 2 October in the Ahti Sonninen Hall of the Music Academy of Eastern Finland. Admission is free, but advance registration is requested via our website. The concert series will continue in November. Information about the concerts will be updated on the Avant website.

Kaija Saariaho turns 70 this year and Avanti! will be present at the birthday party. 15.10. A gala concert will be held in the Music Hall, the first part of which will feature pieces by Saariaho and young composers performed by the Zagros Ensemble. In the second half of the concert, Avanti!, conducted by Aliisa Neige Barriere, will perform Saariaho’s Aile du Songe with Kaisa Kortelainen as soloist, Graal Theatre’s John Storgårds as soloist and Leevi Räsäsä’s new work Don´t tell Mama. The year culminates with the Finnish premiere of Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone, when Avanti! and the Paris-based musical theatre group La Chambre aux echos join forces. The work will be conducted by Saariaho specialist Clement Mao-Takacs and directed by Aleksi Barriere. For composer Kaija Saariaho, the Passion is her most personal and therefore most important stage work. The work will be performed twice at Musiikkitalo on 29 and 30 December.

The autumn will also include a festival atmosphere to the tune of Avant. The closing concert of the Sipoon Voices Festival on Sunday 9 October will feature Petri Kumela as guitar soloist. The concert will be conducted by József Hárs. The programme includes George Crumb’s Dream Sequence, Louise Farrenc’s Nonetto in E flat major, Op. 38 and Antti Auvinen’s Andalusian Panzerwagen Jazz. The concert concludes with Richard Wagner’s Siegfrieds Tod und Trauermarsch, arranged by Emil Holmström.

On 8 November, an Avant concert will take place in the Cable Factory’s Sea Cable Hall, with a programme based around environmental protection themes. In addition to music, the concert will feature talks by Mikael Fortelius, Professor Emeritus of Evolutionary Palaeontology at the University of Helsinki, and Hannele Korhose, Research Professor at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

Ticket sales

Tickets for the concerts here!

Tuomo Huhdanpää appointed Acting Executive Director of Avant

As of 1 August 2022, Tuomo Huhdanpää, Master of Music, will take over from Annika Mustonen, Avant’s Executive Director, who is on family leave.

Photo by Minna Hatinen

Huhdanpää, who has also played percussion in Avant himself, has for the past year been the artistic director of the Vivo Youth Symphony Orchestra. A familiar face from many art music festivals, he was also recently involved in Avant’s Suvisoitto.

“I’m looking forward to working at Avant and I’m particularly excited by the versatile nature of Avant and the fact that I get to work with some great top musicians,” said Huhdanpää.

As Acting Executive Director of Avant from 1.8.2022, Huhdanpää can be contacted by email at firstname.lastname(at)avantimusic.fi or 0505810409.

Summerfest brought America to hot Porvoo – Julia Wolfe’s programme captivated audiences with no less than 11 events

Avantin 37. The summer concert filled Porvoo with contemporary American music. Composer Julia Wolfe and the festival’s international artist guests conductor Brad Lubman, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Mark Stewart, percussion virtuoso Colin Currie and Trio Mediæval offered unique musical experiences. The varied festival programme offered everything from church concerts to vocal works and large orchestral concerts in the Avanti Hall. Saturday’s Avanti! Club drew a packed audience to enjoy both music and refreshments.

The “Body Language” themed festival kicked off with a traditional and magnificent concert in Pernaja church on Wednesday. The actual opening day in Porvoo was dedicated to the music of artistic designer Julia Wolfe – in the daytime concert Trio Mediæval, Mark Stewart and the musicians of Avant performed a stirring Steel Hammer musical story. The evening’s “Cruel Sister” concert showed how the string orchestra bent from the delicate Samuel Barber’s Adagio to the stormy Michael Gordon’s Weather One. In addition to the concerts at the Art Factory, the Avant-garde spread out into Porvoo’s Old Town.

Friday started off with a sunny Town Hall Square, where Mark Stewart got the audience into the music. From the square, the journey continued uphill to the Cathedral, where a large crowd gathered to enjoy chamber music from the Avanti! quartet and Avant’s musicians under the direction of József Hárs. On Saturday, the hot VPK Hall was the venue for the premiere performances of four composition students. On Thursday, the launch of new audio works for the Western Riverside was the first time the works inspired by Porvoo were heard. The composers behind the works are Maija Hynninen, Jennah Vainio and the team of Minna Leinonen and Jussi Suonikko.

The biggest crowd-pleasers of the festival were Saturday night’s sold-out Avanti! Club, Sunday’s sold-out and hilarious Mark Stewart-led children’s music workshop and Sunday’s closing concert. All the concerts were warmly received and the atmosphere throughout the festival was the most upbeat. The hunger for music was palpable – and Avanti! responded with a tray of American musical delicacies.

A time of thanks

Thank you to Avant’s friends, artist guests, musicians, the whole team and all our valuable partners. Thanks especially to the City of Porvoo for the deeper cooperation.

The festival was made possible by the City of Porvoo, the Ministry of Education and Culture, Porvoo Aktiasäätiö, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and Svenska Kulturfonden. We thank our supporters!

Listen to Friday’s concert

The orchestral concert “Big, Beautiful, Dark, and Scary” will be broadcast on Yle radio on Friday 1 July and can be heard on Yle Arena for 30 days after the concert.

The live broadcast from the Avanti Hall of the Porvoo Art Factory was delivered by Ainomaija Pennanen. The broadcast included interviews with artistic director Julia Wolfe, conductor Brad Lubman and composer Maija Hynninen.

See you at next year’s Suvisoito!

Unsuk Chin and Maris Gothóni are in charge of the programme for next year’s Summer Play!

South Korean Unsuk Chin’s music is performed regularly and worldwide by leading artists. He has been celebrated with a series of classical music awards, including the 2017 Sibelius Prize.

Maris Gothóni, a Finnish-Australian music administrator, is currently the artistic planning director of the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra in Norway.

Unsuk and Maris have been working together for 15 years as concert curators. They currently direct the artistic programming for the Tongyeong International Music Festival in Korea and the Weiwuying International Music Festival in Taiwan.

Avantin 38. Summer Play in Porvoo 28.6.-2.7.2023

Check out the Summer Play programme – Julia Wolfe’s festival showcases contemporary American music

This summer, Avant’s Suvisoito will be a blast of contemporary American music – a programme designed by composer Julia Wolfe brings a record number of international guests to Porvoo

The 37th Avant’s Summer Festival will be held in Porvoo from 29.6.-3.7.2022. With the theme “Body Language” The artistic director of the festival is Julia Wolfe, one of the most important American composers of our time.artist.

Wolfe has emerged in the 2000s with works that combine American folklore, genres from rock to minimalism, pervasive energy and unique compositions. A cross-section of his compositions will be heard in Suvisoito, culminating in the closing concert riSe and fLY. Drumming his body and percussion in the work is the legendary Colin Currie. Wolfe, who lives in New York, is known as one of the founding composers of Bang on a Can, an artist collective dedicated to contemporary music, together with Michael Gordonin and David Lang with. The composers of the strongly American concert programme include, among others, Wolfe’s students. Anna Clyne and Shelley Washington.

These composers of the “post-minimalist” era are set against a backdrop of György Ligeti, Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, John Adams and John Luther Adams works. From further back in history Samuel Barberin Adagio for strings and Aaron Copland’s Spring of the Appalachians, which in their day laid the foundations for American art music that was open, unafraid of emotion and genre. Even further afield, Fanny Mendelssohn has been called Wolfe’s godmother, Bach and Beethoven, paragons of energetic and forward-looking music.

Avant will be guest conductor and will be joined by Brad Lubman, one of the leading performers of contemporary American music. In addition to Colin Currie, guest soloists include Bang on Can All stars guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Mark Stewart and the Norwegian Trio Mediæval. The conductor will also be one of Avant’s trusted partners, the captivating József Hárs.

The whole of Porvoo rings – the West Bank sound artwork is unveiled

The Suvisoitto will kick off on Wednesday evening in Pernaja church and the Avant-garde will also take over the old town of Porvoo during the festival. This time, the fanfare will ring out at Town Hall Square on Friday 1 July at 12 noon, from where it will continue to Porvoo Cathedral for a free chamber music concert. On Saturday, the young composers of the future will emerge, and their new works, created during the Composition Workshop course, will finally be premiered at VPK-talo at 13:00 in a free concert.

As part of Suvisoitto, a sound art work will be unveiled on the West Coast, as part of a new Porvoo art programme combining urban development and art. Among the first art projects to be unveiled is a sound artwork created in collaboration between Avant and the City of Porvoo’s cultural services. Short works composed for the smart lighting columns on the beach will be heard through their loudspeakers By Maija Hynnnis, Jennah Vainio and the partner Minna Leinonen and Jussi Suonikko. The opening of the sound artworks will take place in Jokiranta on Thursday 30.6. at 12 noon.

Avanti! congratulates the 10th anniversary of the Art Factory

Once again, Porvoo’s Art Factory will be the base for the summer festival, and the Avantines will also be proudly celebrating its 10th anniversary. The old factory building was dusted off before the festival, from the year it was founded in 1986 until the first decade of the 2000s, when the decision to renovate the factory into a cultural centre finally came to fruition. Opened to the public in 2012, the Art Factory’s concert hall was renamed Avanti Hall, an undeniable recognition of the close relationship between Suvisoito and the city of Porvoo that has deepened over the years.

A new look for Suvi

Avant’s Summer Play has been given a new and unique visual identity by illustrator Lille Santanen. The look of the Suvisoito has been created with her own typography, which is one of Santase’s most distinctive features. Santanen describes his illustration style as organically playful.
– “During the sketching phase of the Summer Play look, I thought that the illustrations would be placed in their own positions in the areas delimited by the grid. However, it turned out that the parts of the illustration do what they like and place themselves in the grid as they please. Summer Play sounds like an event where this can happen to performers and guests.”

Tickets for Avant’s XXXVII Summer Play: “Body Language” are on sale now at Lippupiste outlets and at www.lippu.fi. Concert programmes can be found at: https://avantimusic.fi/suvisoiton-ohjelma/.

 

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This year, Avantis Summer Music will be filled with lively American contemporary music – a programme planned by composer Julia Wolfe will bring a record number of international guests to Borgå

Avantis Sommarmusik will be held for the 37th time, in Borgå 29.6.-3.7.2022. The festival will focus on the theme “Body Language” and the artistic planning is the responsibility of Julia Wolfe, en av de mest betydande amerikanska tonsättarna just nu.

Wolfes stjärna steg during the 2000s with music that combines American folklore, various styles from rock to minimalism, overwhelming energy and unique compositions. Sommarmusik bjuder på ett tvärsnitt av hennes kompositioner och kulminerar i avslutningskonserten med riSe and fLY, where legendariska Colin Currie trummar på både kropp och slagverk. Wolfe is based in New York and is known as one of the founders of the artists’ collective Bang on a Can, which has produced all kinds of music, together with Michael Gordon and David Lang. The concert programmes have a strong American flavour and, in addition to these names, there are also Wolfe’s songs Anna Clyne and Shelley Washington.

As a background to these themes from a “post-minimalist” era, the network of György Ligeti, Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, John Adams and John Luther Adams. Går vi längre bakåt i historien hittar vi Samuel Barber Adagio for stråkar and Aaron Copland’s Vår i Appalacherna, which in the past formed the basis of American art music, characterised by openness in relation to both phenomena and genres. Ännu längre bak i historien hittar vi Wolfes faddrar Fanny Mendelssohn, Bach and Beethoven, the forerunners of energetic and progressive music.

Guest conductor for Avanti! är Brad Lubman, en av de centrala namnen inom amerikansk samtida musik. Bland solistnamnen ingår förutom Colin Currie gitarristen och multiinstrumentalisten Mark Stewart från Bang on a Can All Stars samt norska Trio Mediæval. Bland dirigentnamnen finns också en av Avantis trogna parhästar, den fascinerande József Hárs.

All of Borgå klingar – ljudkonstverk vid Västra åstranden

Onsdag kväll tjuvstartar Sommarmusik i Pernå kyrka ja Avantigänget rör sig även i Gamla stan i Borgå under festivalens gång. Fanfaren skallar på Rådhustorget fredag 1.7. kl. 12 och därefter blir det en avgiftsfri kammarmusikkonsert i Borgå domkyrka. On Lördag, the festival will give space to young composers – the music they created for the composition medja course will be performed in a free concert in the FBK-huset at 11.00. 13.

As part of Sommarmusik, a ljudkonstverk on Västra åstranden, a part of Borgå’s arts programme that combines new urban development with art, will also be published. One of the first art projects is an art network created in cooperation between Avanti! and Borgå city cultural services. From the högtalare on smartlyktstolpar vid stranden kommer man att höra korta verk komponerade enkom för detta av Maya Hynninen, Jennah Vainio same workplace Minna Leinonen and Jussi Suonikko. Vernissage för ljudkonstverken blir det vid Åstranden torsdag 30.6. kl. 12.

Avanti! congratulates 10-year-old Konstfabriken

Sommarmusik has been based at Borgå Konstfabrik for a long time, and Avantigänget is celebrating its 10th anniversary with pride. The festival was held annually in the old factory building from the first festival summer in 1986 until the first quarter of 2000, when the decision was taken to renovate the factory and turn it into a cultural centre. The new Konstfabriken was opened to the public in 2012 and the concert hall was named Avanti-salen, an obestridligt statement of the close relationship between Sommarmusik and the city of Borgå, which was renewed at the end of the year.

Summer music gets a new profile

Avantis Sommarmusik has been given a new visual profile by illustrator Lille Santanen. I den ingår en egen typografi, ett av av Santanen kännetecken. Hon kallar sin illustrationsstil organiskt lekfull.

– Då jag skisserade upp Sommarmusiks profil tänkte jag att illustrationserna skulle placera sig på egna avgränsade platzser inom rutsystemet. Men medan jag arbetade märkte jag att illustrationsdelarna gjorde precis vad de hade lust till och placerade sig inom rutfältet hur de ville. Sommarmusik låter som ett evenemang, där detta kan hända även musiker och besökare.

Avanti XXXVII Summer Music: “Body Language”. Tickets for the festival will be sold via Lippupiste’s sales outlets and the website www.lippu.fi. Konsertprogrammen finns här: https://avantimusic.fi/suvisoiton-ohjelma/.