Annika Mustonen appointed Executive Director of Avant

Pro Avanti! Association has appointed Annika Mustonen as Executive Director of the Avant Chamber Orchestra and the Suvisoitto Festival. Ms Mustonen has held the position on a temporary basis since August 2017.

Annika Mustonen is a cultural producer from Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences and a musician (pop/jazz vocals) from Metropolia. She is originally from Varkaus, where she attended music classes in primary school. She graduated from Savonlinna Art High School. Annika Mustonen has gained international experience through student exchanges in Spain and internships in the USA.

Prior to Avant, Mustonen has worked as a freelancer at several art events across the country, and as the executive producer of the pioneering We Jazz event in Helsinki in 2013-2015. He is also the producer of Jazz-Espa 2010-2018.

The new Executive Director knows what he is doing and enjoys Avant’s content-driven thinking. “Avanti! is an extremely interesting organisation, where music is made rigorously and from all eras. The most interesting thing is that music really is at the heart of everything we do. The works are always selected first and only then the performers. “, says Mustonen. He doesn’t abandon his own musicianship, but plays gigs when his main work schedule allows.

Launched in spring 2018, Pro Avanti! Association will continue the activities of the chamber orchestra Avant and the Suvisoitto Festival, which has been closed down due to financial difficulties. ry. Pro Avanti! “During the tumultuous 2017-18 season, Annika Mustonen managed the duties of Avant’s Executive Director with such Avanti! commitment and strong stress tolerance that it was an easy and pleasant task to appoint her as the permanent Executive Director”, says Pro Avanti! Association was an easy and straightforward decision to take on the role of Executive Director .

Avant’s XXXIII Summer Concert programme has been published, tickets on sale at Lippupiste

The programme for Avant’s XXXIII Summer Festival has been published and tickets are on sale. The event, which starts on Wednesday 27 June, will feature 12 concerts in total. The festival bus will again serve concert-goers between Helsinki and Porvoo.

The trio of designers of the summer concert, long-time Avant-gardists Timo Ahtinen, Hanna Juutilainen and Jukka Rautasalo, have cultivated an Avant-garde approach that covers music from as wide a time span as possible, with old and new running strongly side by side. Pernaja and Porvoo are also present in the choice of works. The subtitle of the festival is Är det här nytt, Avanti? Early Music Summer Play.

 

From the 1400s to the premières

The traditional summer festival is held in the medieval church of Pernaja. The programme includes music from the 15th century to the present day, most recently three works by Olli Virtaperko, including the premiere of The Gods of Hämälä commissioned by Jukka Rautasalo.

The rich programme commemorates Mikael Agricola (c. 1510-1557), born into a peasant family in Torsby, Pernaja, who was sent from his home village to the Vyborg Latin School in the late 1510s. There he adopted his Latin surname Agricola, meaning farmer. The works in the Pernaja church concert include several of Agricola’s texts.

The official opening concert of the Summer Concert on Thursday 28 June at 19:00 will be conducted by Dima Slobodeniouk. Recorder artist Eero Saunamäki will be the soloist.

The festival fanfare composed by Jukka Tiensuu for this year’s Suvisoito will resound in Porvoo’s Tuomiokirko on Friday at 12.All Friday concerts will be played on the Church Hill, in Tuomiokirko and in Pikkukirko, where compositions by children from Porvoo will be heard. Friday evening will end with Duke Ellington tunes in Tuomiokirko, with Anu Koms and Marzi Nyman.

Saturday’s programme includes two premieres, Jarkko Hartikainen’s EMBODIED for solo violin and Heinz-Juhani Hofmann’s Kylätasku songs. Hartikainen’s work will be played by violinist Eriikka Maalismaa, who also commissioned the work. Jussi Kylätasku, who died in 2005, lived and worked in Porvoo for many years. The song cycle based on his texts was commissioned by soprano Anu Koms.

As always, Suvisoito also has a programme for children. On Sunday 1 July, the Klasariklaara and the Jazz Pisk will be performing at the Art Workshop, along with Lotta Wennäkoski ‘s Spider-Mic, sung by Petri Bäckström. The concert will be conducted by József Hárs.

33. The closing concert of the Summer Concert will include Pehr-Henrik Nordgren’s HATE – LOVE for cello and string orchestra op. 71. Soloist is cellist Marko Ylönen . The opening piece of the concert is Orient occident by Iánnis Xenákis. The other soloists in the concert conducted by Sakari Oramo are string artist Ilkka Heinonen and soprano Anu Komsi.

The programme, performers, ticket prices and festival bus timetable for the Summer Music Festival can be found here.

 

Avantin 33. Summer concert will take place, programme to be announced on 16.5.

Avanti! the chamber orchestra’s traditional Summer Music Festival is here to stay. The positive funding decision by the Ministry of Education was based on the support of the Chamber Orchestra and the festival’s home towns, as well as the Finnish Cultural Foundation. The city of Porvoo has been the home of Suvisoito since the first Suvisoito. The festival programme will be announced in mid-May.

The planners of this year’s Suvisoito have been Avant-garde since the very beginning. The trio of Timo Ahtinen, Hanna Juutilainen and Jukka Rautasalo have taken an Avant-garde approach to planning, covering music from as wide a time span as possible, with old and new running strongly in parallel. “What is old, what is new?”

Most of the concerts of the Summer Music Festival will be held at the Art Factory, but the whole of Friday 29.6. will be spent on Porvoo’s Church Hill and the evening concerts at the Tuomiokirko. As always before, the Suvisoito evening will be held in the medieval church of Pernaja on 27 June.

Avanti! is coming, are you ready?

The recent turmoil at Avant has of course affected the work of the designers, and Avanti! would not be Avanti! if it did not comment sharply on society and its oddities through art. It may well be that something Kafkaesque will emerge from the programme.

This year’s conductors are Sakari Oramo and Dima Slobodeniouk, and Anu Komsi is one of the festival’s soloists. New works by Olli Virtaperko, Jarkko Hartikainen and Heinz-Juhani Hoffmann will be premiered. The XXXIII Suvisoitto is also a festival of early music in Avant-garde style. “The programme includes new music, old music and music that has been forgotten and abused,” say the planners.

The Summer Concert programme will be announced on Wednesday 16 May, when ticket sales will also start. According to the design trio, the Suvisoito is made up of “past, present and future Avant-gardists and listeners who draw their vitality from culture and music.”

Avant’s Midsummer Call

The Summer Music Festival was founded in 1986. Porvoo, chosen as the festival city, naturally incorporated Avant into its identity: “The city of the river, the hills, two languages, two medieval squares, narrow streets, old houses, international trade, Runeberg, European fine arts, books, reality and symbols, and now Avant, warmly welcomes every music lover.”

33. The software of Suvisoito implements Avanti! thinking in its purest form. This year, the festival fanfare will ring out on Church Hill on Friday, celebrating more than 30 years of a boundless musical event.

Artists’ comment on the situation of the Avant Chamber Orchestra

Comment on the situation of the Avant Chamber Orchestra

On 9 March 2018, the Ministry of Education and Culture decided to recover a total of 500 000 euros in unjustified VOS subsidies from the Avant Chamber Orchestra. This decision effectively means the end of the orchestra’s activities.

We, the undersigned, would like to point out that the Ministry could have decided otherwise if it wished. Avanti! has been under the watchful eye of the Ministry of Education and Culture since the VOS system was set up. The orchestra has regularly and transparently submitted an activity report and audited accounts to the Ministry. These documents have apparently not been made available to the Ministry, as for twenty years the orchestra has not received any instructions or suggestions for corrections. Avanti! has itself identified the anomalies that have now arisen and has conscientiously contacted the Ministry.

We are deeply concerned about the way the Ministry of Education and Culture approaches the monitoring of the funding it allocates. Particularly now that the VOS system and its criteria are being reformed, we hope that the government will show particular attention to the implementation of the criteria, both artistically and administratively. We believe that by now recovering old state contributions from Avant, the Ministry is punishing an innocent orchestra for its own negligence.

If the government believes that Finnish music life is best served by the ministry covering up its own negligence by burying its embarrassing mistake and the orchestra that is the subject of the negligence, the decision may be legally valid, but it is a disgrace to the ministry’s actual mission.

We understand that the Ministry – knowing that the orchestra cannot repay the money – is forcing Avant into bankruptcy. The Ministry does not get its money back but the orchestra ceases to exist; everyone loses. The damage to the cultural life of our country is irreparable. The Finnish classical music scene is famous for its openness and open-mindedness. In creating and maintaining this atmosphere, Avanti! has been an essential factor in creating and maintaining this atmosphere.

During its existence, Avanti! has played more than 600 premieres. It regularly collaborates with the country’s leading performers and composers. The orchestra is known for its altruism and idealism. Now, by its official decision, the Ministry is dangerously putting the economy at odds with the spirit that carries our music into the future.

We hope the Ministry of Education and Culture will reverse its decision. After all, it is a question of whether form matters more than substance.

Berlin – Helsinki – Lahti – Los Angeles – Rovaniemi – Paris – Sydney – Stockholm – Tokyo – Vienna, 13 March 2018

Anssi Karttunen

Pekka Kuusisto

Magnus Lindberg

Hannu Lintu

Susanna Mälkki

Sakari Oramo

Kaija Saariaho

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Jukka-Pekka Saraste

Dima Slobodeniouk

John Storgårds

Lotta Wennäkoski

OKM recovers €500 000 in state funding from Avant

On 9 March 2018, the Ministry of Education and Culture decided to recover from Avant a total of EUR 500 000 in unjustified overpayments of state funding.

Chamber Orchestra Avanti! has been using the VOS reporting model since 1998, which, according to the recovery decision, does not meet the requirements of the current VOS legislation. The reporting model used by Avanti had overstated the number of man-years calculated.

Avant’s Board decided on its reporting method in 1998 after discussions with the Ministry of Education and Culture. The orchestra has followed the same reporting policy ever since. The rationale for this different reporting method from that used by other operators is that the State contribution model is not suitable as such for an operator such as Avant, which employs a large number of freelance musicians on an irregular basis but has to maintain a relatively large permanent staff of design and production personnel.

In early 2017, Avanti! developed its own financial management and reporting system. As a result of this development work, the association sought advice from the Ministry and it became clear that Avanti’s reporting does not meet the requirements of the current VOS legislation. This information was new and came as a surprise to Avant, and led to almost a year of research, which the Ministry has carried out in good cooperation with Avant.

Avant’s understanding remains that there was agreement with the Ministry on the system applied in 1998. In its recovery decision, the Ministry states that ‘it is possible, however, that the views expressed by the Ministry may have contributed to the development of the incorrect practice at the time‘. The Ministry also states in its decision that ‘. in this case there is no reason to doubt Avanti! association acted fraudulently and deliberately misreported personal expenses. The fact that the conduct came to light in the Avanti! ry’s own contacts “.

Avanti! feels that nothing has been brought to its attention that would give cause to revise the practice in force since 1998. In the context of the legislative change, Avanti! amended its rules in accordance with the guidelines. The written instructions on the collection of cost data in 2007 concerned, in Avanti’s view, the collection and reporting of data, not the principle that had guided Avanti’s reporting since 1998.

Avanti! feels that it has acted in accordance with the law and reported its financial figures as agreed. The Avanti Board of Directors decided on the reporting model to be followed in 1998 after very careful analysis.

The Ministry’s decision to recover the money is based almost exclusively on the law on the financing of education and culture, not on cultural policy considerations. The Ministry must order the recovery of the overpayment. But the law also states that if the amount of the benefit to be recovered is insignificant or if the recovery of the benefit or interest is considered excessive, the benefit may not be ordered to be recovered.

Avanti! considers that the recovery is unreasonable. The Ministry is reducing the amount to be recovered to EUR 500 000, but does not consider the partial recovery to be unreasonable, even though the decision poses an extremely serious threat to the continuity of Avanti’s activities.

All these years, the Ministry has had access to Avant’s annual reports and accounts. Avant’s auditor has provided Avant with a clean audit report for all the years of the association’s existence.

Avanti! has been a VOS-supported orchestra since the beginning of the legislation, and the state grant has been the basis of Avanti’s economic activity, enabling the orchestra to employ hundreds of top professionals in the field of art music every year. Avanti! has been a pioneer of new programming in our country, because the artistic starting point has been the repertoire, not the composition. Avanti has developed into an institution whose importance in Finnish musical and cultural life cannot be overstated. It has two main pillars: the orchestral activities and the annual Suvisoitto event, now in its 32nd year, organised in collaboration with the City of Porvoo.

Criteria set by law for receiving state aid Avanti! has been fulfilled throughout its operation. Avanti! has received a grant from the State for its orchestra and concert activities and for the Summer Play. The results speak for themselves.

Avanti! is one of the most prolific premiers of Finnish music in the last thirty-five years. Avanti! has given nearly six hundred premieres in its lifetime. It has literally been instrumental in the breakthrough to international consciousness of many composers, including Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jouni Kaipainen and Kimmo Hakola. Through its composition courses and workshops, Avanti! has also trained the next generation of composers and premiered their works.

A significant number of internationally successful conductors have left Avant’s ranks: the founders Esa-Pekka Salonen and Jukka-Pekka Saraste have been followed by Sakari Oramo, John Storgårds, Susanna Mälkki, Hannu Lintu, Tuomas Hannikainen, Tomas Djupsjöbacka, Dima Slobodeniuk and Klaus Mäkelä. The orchestra has also trained new musicians to join its ranks. On their international tours, Avanti! has been an important ambassador for Finnish new music.

Further information:

Arne Wessberg, Avanti! Chairman of the Association
p. 0400618800
arne.wessberg(at)elisanet.fi

Avanti! – “Classics of All Time” 5.5.2018 at Musiikkitalo (part of AUF series)

Sat 5.5. at 14.00 Music House, Paavo Hall

In the first concert of the AUF series, Avanti! will play classics from the baroque, romantic, jazz and folk music genres. The concert will conclude with a steak dinner featuring György Ligeti’s String Quartet No 1.

Performers:

Avanti Quartet
– Anna-Leena Haikola, violin
– Eriikka Maalismaa, violin
– Tuula Riisalo, viola
– Mikko Ivars, cello

Kari Kriikku, clarinet

Jouko Laivuori, piano

The concert is part of a joint AUF series by Avant, UMO and FiBO, whose theme for spring 2018 is “Classics of the World”. Top orchestras from different genres invite listeners to a day of concerts to discover a wide range of musical delicacies. Which concert has the most classics? Come and find out for yourself; a series ticket for three concerts costs just €13!

Tickets and other information: https://www.musiikkitalo.fi/fi/tapahtuma/avanti-kaikkien-aikojen-klassikot

Avanti! at the NJORD Festival 27.-28.1.2018 (Copenhagen, Denmark)

Sat 27.1.2018 at 19:30
Royal Danish Academy of Music

Reflections // Spejlinger

Chamber Orchestra Avanti!
Clément Mao Takacs, conductor
Jakob Kullberg, cello
Caroline Wettegreen, soprano

Programme:

Anna Thorvaldsdottir: HRIM (2009/2010)

Kaija Saariaho: Amers (1992)

Hans Abrahamsen: To Inger Christensen sange (2017)

György Ligeti: Chamber Concerto (1969-70)


Sun 28.1.2018 at 15:00
Royal Danish Academy of Music

Music of Tomorrow // Morgendagens musik

Chamber Orchestra Avanti!
Clément Mao Takacs, conductor

Programme:

Xavier Bonfill: All over the place

Matias Vestergård: …As veins through his darkness…

Fintan O’Hare: Afloat and Aground

Niklas Ottander: Affirming Denying

 

Further information: http://njordbiennale.com/2018

An evening of two premieres as part of the PianoEspoo festival

Ultracromatics – Avanti! At the Knight’s Hall today 6.11.2017 at 18:00

Avanti! has been a pioneer of new trends in Finnish music for more than three decades. In their PianoEspoo concert, the orchestra will premiere Sampo Haapamäki’s new concerto for quarter piano and Jukka Tiensuu’s recorder concerto. The soloists will be Eero Saunamäki, a keyboardist, and Elisa Järvi, a pianist who has been working with Haapamäki for years to develop the fourth string piano to provide a way for the composer’s increasingly varied chordal visions on keyboard.

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Avant’s autumn season begins

Chamber Orchestra Avanti! has tuned up its instruments for the autumn performances. The season kicks off with a free Arts Night concert on 24 August, featuring alternative baroque music. Read more

At the turn of September and October, in cooperation with Oopperaseurue taite ry, we will bring two of Väinö Raition’s operatic gems from the 1930s to the Alminsali stage. Read more

In early November, we will be taking part in the PianoEspoo festival. There will be two premiere performances, with Sampo Hapamäki’s concerto for piano four string and Jukka Tiensuu’s recorder concerto. Read more

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Summer play in the making, next festival planned by a trio

On Sunday, the 32. The summer concert attracted over 3000 people to fourteen concerts in Porvoo and Pernaja. The festival met its artistic and visitor targets.
The 33rd edition of the festival was held in Pernonia, with a total of 4,500 people attending. The Avant Garda Summer Festival will take place next summer from 27 June to 1 July 2018. This time the programme will be designed by Avanti! The programme for this year’s event will be organised by Avanti Avanti itself. Timo Ahtinen (double bass), Hanna Juutilainen (flutist) and Jukka Rautasalo (cellist) will take the lead.

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