Category: News

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/

Tue 15.9.2020 19.00

The Helsinki Music Centre

Heikki Kossi, foley artist

Antti Tikkanen, violin

Avanti! Chamber Orchestra

UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra

Finnish Baroque Orchestra (FiBO)

The second cooperation concert by the AUF orchestras demonstrates how recycled junk sounds in the hands of a foley artist, what Vivaldi’s Seasons sound like in a remix version, and what kind of links there are between the concert’s pieces and the world of cinema.

Sami Klemola’s composition Jack and the Specifics is created for foley artist and chamber orchestra. It is reportedly the first time when the solo parts of a concerto are written for a foley artist, in this case Heikki Kossi. Kossi is a sound artist who produces e.g. sounds of footsteps and creaking doors for movie soundtracks. Kossi has worked with tens of Finnish films and he has also succeeded internationally. He creates the foley sounds live in the concert. The visual element is strongly present as Kossi, who performs with Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, brings with him a giant kiosk full of things to make sounds with.

Afro-Bossa is one of Duke Ellington’s most remarkable and original compositions. In a fascinating way it demonstrates how the maestro, close to retirement age, still found new ways to journey through the world of blues. Regardless of its name, the piece does not refer to Brazilian music. Instead, it is an abstract combination of African and Latin influences that like an approaching procession, on wings lent by the bolero rhythm, reach an exploding climax. In addition to Ellington’s work, UMO Helsinki performs Jukka Tiensuu’s pulsating piece Umori. Once again Tiensuu showed the music world his unfailing gifts as a visionary, when he reinvented the big band ensemble musically for the piece. The piece is not, however, an antithesis or negation to the big band tradition, but rather an astonishingly carefree update of the unused resources of the large jazz orchestra.

The distance between the past and the present is short – sometimes even subtle. FiBO presents an ear-opening version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, more than familiar to friends of Baroque music, as the concert finale is Max Richter’s Four Seasons Recomposed, premiered in 2012. It modifies the Four Seasons concertos into minimalist remixes. Sometimes Vivaldi and Richter choose the same direction, and sometimes Richter twists the music into an unexpected angle or stretches it into cosmic Baroque sceneries through repetitions. The result of the recoloured harmony bases and surfaces reminding of electronic sounds is ear-tickling and intelligently performed ambient Vivaldi. The Finland premiere with period instruments last year, organised by violinist Antti Tikkanen and FiBO, delighted international concert organisers, and the performance is taken to Southern Europe this year. The concert received exceptionally praising feedback from Art Testers in eighth grade, so the Four Seasons captivate audiences regardless of age group.

The concert is part of the AUF cooperation of Avanti!, UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra and the Finnish Baroque Orchestra that was started in the fall of 2017. The first grand cooperation concert was held in the fall of 2019.

Before the concert a concert presentation is held in the main foyer at 6 pm.

UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra

Duke Ellington: Afro-Bossa (1963)

Jukka Tiensuu: UMORI (2004)

1. Kumous / Riscossa
2. Umous / Hunch
3. Kumotus / Clair de lune
4. Fever / Fever

Avanti! Chamber Orchestra

Heikki Kossi, foley artist

Sami Klemola: Jack and the Specifics (2017)

1. The Forest
2. Man in the Cabin
3. The Crash
4. Intermezzo
5. Friction
6. Underwater
7. Message deleted
8. Tom, Jack and bipolar Jerry
9. Machina
10. Cadenza
11. Exit
12. Still life

interval

Finnish Baroque Orchestra (FiBO)

Antti Tikkanen, violin

Max Richter: Four Seasons Recomposed (2012)

1. Spring
2. Summer
3. Autumn
4. Winter

Tickets: ticketmaster.fi

The theatrical ensemble version of Kaija Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone will have its Helsinki premiere in The Helsinki Music Centre in Easter 2020.La Passion de Simone offers a new kind of Easter experience, even for those with long Easter traditions.Through its philosophical perspective the oratorio appeals also to the younger audience.

A Paris-based music theatre company, La Chambre aux échos commissioned the chamber orchestra version of the oratorio in 2012 and gave the first premiere in November 14th 2013 in Melos-Ethos Festival in Bratislava, Slovakia. The oratorio has since been performed on several festivals (Saint-Denis, Bergen, Njord, Lublin) as well as New York, Paris and Copenhagen and various opera houses in France.

In Helsinki, the artists from La Chambre aux échos will be performing together with Avanti! Chamber Orchestra. The performance is conducted by Clément Mao-Takacs, a Saariaho specialist, and directed by Aleksi Barrière.

SUN 12.4.2020 19.00

MON 13.4.2020 16.00

Kaija Saariaho
composer

Amin Maalouf
libretto

Clément Mao-Takacs
conductor

Aleksi Barrière
director

Avanti! Chamber Orchestra

Sayuri Araida
soprano soloist

Isabelle Seleskovitch
actor

Sandra Darcel (soprano)
vocal quartet

Marianne Seleskovitch (mezzo-soprano)
vocal quartet

Johan Viau (tenor)
vocal quartet

Romain Dayez (bass baritone)
vocal quartet

music house.fi

SAT 8.2.2020 19.00

Ballroom G18 (Yrjönkatu 18, Helsinki)

Avanti! celebrates the ^50th anniversary of the composer Lotta Wennäkoski in a concert, performing four of her most significant chamber orchestra works. Among the orchestral pieces, Wennäkoski will be seen on stage as well, performing Hungarian folk songs.

Jósef Hárs, conductor

Virpi Räisänen, mezzo-soprano

Eero Saunamäki, recorders

Heikki Nikula, bass clarinet

Ville Syrjäläinen, percussion

Avanti! Chamber Orchestra

Lotta Wennäkoski:

I stället för vingar (2014-16)

Hele (2018)

Hear II (2007)

Zeng (2018-19)

and Hungarian folk songs

Tickets:

https://www.lippu.fi/artist/avanti/

SAT 28.3.2020 13.00

The Helsinki Music Centre

Marzi Nyman (quitar), Arttu Takalo (vibraphone) and Tero Toivonen (French horn) are back together with string quartet from Avanti! Chamber Orchestra. The repertoire of the concert, a rich fusion of jazz, classical and popular music, is composed mainly by the soloists. Nothing is what it seems, but everything is exactly what it sounds like!

The concert is part of AUF concert series, produced together by Avanti!, UMO and FiBO in collaboration with The Helsinki Music Centre.

Marzi Nyman, guitar

Arttu Takalo, vibraphone

Tero Toivonen, French horn

Maija Linkola, violin

Mikaela Palmu, violin

Tuula Riisalo, viola

Iida Vilhelmiina Sinivalo, cello

Tickets:

https://www.musiikkitalo.fi/en/events/2020-03-28/auf-ilolla-avanti

Avanti! Summer Sounds XXXIV will arrive in Porvoo on 26 – 30 June 2019. This year the programme has been created by Swiss Baldur Brönnimann. As the theme for 2019 is City of Music, the music will enter the streets and cafés of Porvoo to paint a multitude of thoughts and feelings on the streets and walls of Porvoo with an imaginary paintbrush.

Finland’s premiere of Teoton composed by Jukka Tiensuu for sheng artist Wu Wei will take place at the Art Factory. Sheng or the mouth-organ is an ancient woodwind instrument, related to harmonica for example, known in China and Korea, in particular.

This year as a novelty Summer Sounds will present late-night Lounge clubs where the international stars, like sheng artist Wu Wei and violinist Jennifer Koh, will join the concert audience at the Avanti Hall foyer after the main concerts. The music will descend from the stage among the audience and the concert guests have a possibility to enjoy the high-level of skill and improvisation of international artists. American violinist Jennifer Koh will also perform pieces for solo violin in the cafés of Porvoo on Saturday. Koh is also the soloist for the fantastic violin concerto by György Ligeti on Friday evening.

The legends of Finnish music Matti Salminen and M.A. Numminen meet again, as the incredible Humppavanti! returns to Summer Sounds. Avanti Hall will witness music from Finnish composers M.A. Nummisen and Unto Monosen as well as Schubert and Wagner in a way not often seen in concert halls. At the final concert, the festival’s folk theme will culminate on Sunday in the works by György Ligeti. The festival will end with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony number 3, “Eroica”.

Summer Sounds will bring to Porvoo music composed by king Henry VIII performed by Avanti’s viola da gamba ensemble as well as compositions from the times of Valle Rosenberg (1891-1919), gifted expressionist painters from Porvoo who died at early age. As in the earlier years, the festival programme includes a composers’ workshop with music written to old avant-garde short films and a concert for children where one can touch the music.

Avantis 34th Summer Sounds festival receives kind support from the City of Porvoo, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Finnish Cultural Foundation, Svenska Kulturfonden and the Aktiastiftelsten in Porvoo.

***

The tickets are sold on the website of Lippupiste as of Friday 22 March at 9.00. For festival pass inquiries, please contact the Avanti! office directly (contact details below). For the full programme, click here.

For further information:
Avanti Office, [email protected],+358 50 581 0409
www.avantimusic.fi

Text edited on 24.5.: The name and number of Beethoven’s symphony in the final concert updated.