Composer and conductor Ondřej Adámek is the artistic director of the Avant Garda Summer Concert 2024

Chamber Orchestra Avanti! has invited the composer and conductor Ondřej Adámek as the artistic designer of the 2024 Summer Music Festival in Avant.


TšAdámek (b.1979) is a composer from Estonia, known in particular for his search for new techniques for classical instruments, which gives his compositions an important timbre and form. His strong interest in different musical cultures of the world can be heard in his orchestral, chamber, vocal and electro-acoustic works, which he has composed for for many prestigious ensembles, orchestras and contemporary music festivals in Europe.

Adámek’s compositions are also accompanied by new instruments, the most famous example of which is The Airmachine, a kind of air machine or instrument created with Carol Jimenez, which will also be shown at the 2024 festival in the form of short films.

The 2023 Summer Festival opened at Porvoo’s Town Hall Square with a composition by Adámek Coups d’ailes, and the 2024 Summer Music Festival will feature a large number of his works. Adámek will also conduct some of the concerts and bring to Porvoo some interesting soloists with whom he has already worked extensively in the past.

The Summer Play features the music of fearless artists

The Summer Play features the music of fearless artists

The concerts of Avant’s spring season have now been played and we thank our audience for the past season!

Summery Porvoo and Avant’s artists and staff are currently preparing for the upcoming Suvisoitto festival, which will take place in Porvoo and the surrounding area immediately after Midsummer for five days from 28 June to 2 July 2023. Dreamlands and Dystopias, showcases the diversity of music of our time. The programme features fresh music from emerging composers as well as more established contemporary composers. It will be an exciting and complex week of concerts.

There will be a particularly large number of Finnish premieres and they will be heard at each of the main Suvisoito concerts. There will be 20 Finnish premieres and two world premieres. The first world premiere will take place on Wednesday 28.6. Wolfgang von Schweinitzwill be played at our concert tonight. Friday 2.7. at the Art Factory Strange Rituals the concert will feature Antti Auvinen the world premiere of his highly anticipated new flute concerto, featuring the versatile Norwegian flutist, composer and sound artist Bjørnar Habbestad.

Other guest soloists this summer include sopranos who have previously worked with Avant. Faustine de Monés and Tuuli Lindeberg. Avant-garde for the public de Monés is familiar a staged ensemble version of Kaija Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone, performed last winter. She will perform in the opening concert of the Summer Opera on 29 June at the Kunsthalle, performing Claude Vivier’s already classic Lonely Child for soprano and ensemble. uuli Lindeberg will sing at the closing concert on 2.7. Vito Žuraj’s Ubuquity – a theatrical work for soprano and ensemble. Malaysian pianist Mei Yi Foo will perform as Avant’s soloist for the first time in two concerts: on Friday 30 June, performing a work by Hans Abrahamsen for solo piano and ensemble, and on Saturday 1 July, playing a collection of small works by various composers for solo piano in a concert. Musical Toys.

This year’s guest conductors for the Summer Music Festival are a young Finn enjoying the upswing of an international career Emilia Hoving and from the Netherlands, the energetic Bas Wiegers.

Avanti Club (K18) Sat 1.7. bears this year the name Dark Mirror. The club will enjoy Philippe Grammaticopoulos’ sharp and exciting short films about a possible world of the near future and music from John Zorn and Michael Daugherty.

Sat 1.7. and Sun 2.7. for families with children Red Nose CompanyThe Emperor’s New Clothes show takes on a new dimension in summer 2023 Marzi Nymanaccompanied by music composed and arranged by. The acting duo Timo Ruuskanen and Tuukka Vasamathe stage will also feature the luminous duo of Avant. The performance continues the inspiring collaboration weaved around the work of Aleksis Kivi.

The artistic design team for the 2023 Summerfest Unsuk Chin and Maris Gothóni warmly welcome the audience to the Summerfest and summarise the programme of their curated programme: “We argue that the ensemble reflects the visionary potential of music in uncertain times, incorporating dream worlds as much as dystopian fears.”

A warm welcome to Suvisoitto!

Avant’s Summer Play 28.6.-2.7.2023

Tickets for the Summer Concert are sold by Lippu.fi.

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

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.