Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone moves to August

Kaija Saariaho and the Paris-based musical theatre group La Chambre aux échos’ stage oratorio La Passion de Simone will be moved from Easter to next summer’s Helsinki Festival due to the corona pandemic. La Passion de Simone will be performed at Helsinki’s Musiikkitalo from 30 to 31 August.

Tickets for the new performances are on sale and tickets purchased for the April performances are valid for the new dates (Sun 12 April -> Sun 30 August and Mon 13 April -> Mon 31 August). If the new date is not suitable, Ticketmaster will refund the ticket price to the purchaser.

The home audience can enjoy the version of La Passion de Simone filmed at Tampere Hall in March 2019 during Easter – Yle Teema Fem will broadcast the recording on Good Friday 10.4. at 12.00. The performance will also be available on Yle Arena at a later date.

 

Tickets for the 30.8 concert

Tickets for the 31.8 concert

Information on ticket refunds

La Passion de Simone is an oratorio based on the ideas, life and struggle against injustice and inequality in the world of French philosopher Simone Weil(1909-1943). The young woman at the centre of the story admires Simone, while questioning her radical intransigence. Compositionally based on Bach’s passions, the work can be experienced as a collective meditation led by soprano Sayuri Araida, actress Isabelle Seleskovitch and a vocal quartet.

The Paris-based musical theatre group La Chambre aux échos commissioned a chamber orchestra version of La Passion de Simone and premiered it on 14 November 2013 at the Melos-Ethos festival in Bratislava, Slovakia. The production has since travelled to festivals (Saint-Denis, Bergen, Njord, Lublin), New York, Paris, Copenhagen and various opera houses in France.

In addition to La Chambre aux échos, the Finnish chamber orchestra Avanti! The conductor is Saariaho specialist Clément Mao-Takacs. The stage director is Aleksi Barrière.

 

Kaija Saariaho
composition

Amin Maalouf
libretto

Clément Mao-Takacs
conductor

Aleksi Barrière
steering

Chamber Orchestra Avanti!

Sayuri Araida
soprano soloist

Isabelle Seleskovitch
actress

Sandra Darcel (soprano)
vocal quartet

Marianne Seleskovitch (mezzo-soprano)
vocal quartet

Johan Viau (tenor)
vocal quartet

Romain Dayez (bass baritone)
vocal quartet

 

La Passion de Simone moves

Easter La Passion de Simone concerts at the Music Hall on 12 and 13 April, With pleasure, Avanti! – Feeling Free -concert in Musiikkitalo on 28 March and the All Time Classics concert in Tammisaari on 19 April have been cancelled in order to combat the coronavirus epidemic, in line with the Finnish government’s policy. Efforts will be made to reschedule the concerts for a later date.

La Passion de Simonen and with joy, Avanti! – Ticket refunds for the Feeling Free concert will be handled by Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster.fi

For more information on Musiikkitalo’s spring concerts, visit Musiikkitalo.fi

For more information on the All Time Classics concert, visit Ekenäs Konsertgarantiförening rf

Avanti! is closely monitoring the situation and will follow the instructions of the authorities in all its activities. We apologise for the inconvenience caused to all concerned.

All-time classics in Tammisaari 19.4.

Sun 19.4.2020 at 18.00
Tammisaari Church, Tammisaari

“CLASSIC ” means a work that has achieved a universally recognised and appreciated status, regardless of genre. The classics are not universal or typical of their time, but summarise something essential about their culture and their era. For example, the chamber orchestra Avant should be considered a classic.” (Antti Häyrynen)

Avanti! will play classics from the baroque, romantic, jazz and folk music genres at Tammisaari Church in April 2020. The concert will feature György Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 1.

The Classics of All Time concert is part of the AUF series, a joint effort by Avant, UMO and FiBO, where top orchestras from different genres invite listeners to experience a wide range of musical delicacies.

 

Anna-Leena Haikola, violin
Terhi Paldanius, violin
Riitta-Liisa Ristiluoma, viola
Mikko Ivars, cello
Kari Kriikku, clarinet
Jouko Laivuori, piano

 

Programme:

A mix of Beethoven and contemporary music:
Jukka Tiensuu: Tombeau de Beethoven

Romantic classic:
Robert Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-flat major op. 44, Part II:
In moto d’una marchia, un poco largamente

Folk music classics:
Béla Bartók’s duos for two violins and Finnish folk music pieces

Baroque classic:
Carlo Farina: Capriccio stravagante

Jazz classic:
Duke Ellington: Mood Indigo
sov. Seppo Kantonen

A new music classic:
György Ligeti: String Quartet No. 1, “Métamorphoses nocturnes”

Allegro grazioso
Vivace, capriccioso
Adagio, mesto
Presto
Andante tranquillo
Tempo di Valse, moderato, con eleganza, un poco capriccioso
Allegretto, un poco gioviale
Prestissimo

 

The concert is organised by Ekenäs Konsertgarantiförening rf

AUF: ALL THE MUSIC OF THE WORLD – From Baroque to Hollywood

Tue 15.9.2020 at 19.00
Music House, Helsinki

Heikki Kossi, foley artist
Antti Tikkanen, violin
Chamber Orchestra Avanti!
UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra
Finnish Baroque Orchestra (FiBO)

Three top orchestras – Chamber Orchestra Avanti!, UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra and Finnish Baroque Orchestra (FiBO) – will once again perform in a joint autumn concert, offering surprising treats and a wide range of skills to delight and inspire the audience! How does a recycled refrain sound on a Foley artist’s kiosk, what does Vivaldi sound like in a minimalist remix version, and what links can be found between the works in the concert and the world of cinema?

Avanti! and the world’s first foley concert
Jack and the Specifics, composed by Sami Klemola, is for foley artist and chamber orchestra. It is reportedly the first time that the solo parts of the concerto have been written for a foley artist, in this case Heikki Koss. Kossi is a sound artist who creates soundtracks for films, including the sound of footsteps and doors creaking. Kossi has worked on dozens of Finnish films and has also enjoyed international success. He performs foley sounds live in a concert situation. There is a strong visual element when Kossi, performing with Avant, brings a huge kiosk full of merchandise with him to produce the sounds.

UMO Helsinki and two ever-renewing maestros
Afro-Bossa is one of Duke Ellington’s most remarkable and original compositions. It’s a stunning demonstration of how the retired maestro still found new ways to travel the world of blues. Despite its name, the work makes no reference to Brazilian music, but is instead an abstract blend of African and Latin influences that, propelled by a bolero rhythm, reach an explosive climax like an approaching procession.

In addition to a piece by Duke Ellington, the UMO will perform a tickling piece by Jukka Tiensuu called Umori. As always with Jukka Tiensuu, he once again showed the music world his unfailing visionary talents when he musically reinvented the big band ensemble in Umori. However, the work is not an antithesis or negation of the big band tradition, but rather an astonishingly unforced glowing update of the unused resources of the big jazz orchestra.

UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra plays a wide range of music from jazz to soul and classical music, surprisingly combining new and old.
umohelsinki.fi

A Finnish baroque orchestra combines past and present
The distance between past and present is short – sometimes a hair’s breadth. A more familiar version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons will open the ears of baroque lovers when the Finnish Baroque Orchestra (FiBO) concludes the concert with Max Richter’s Four Seasons Recomposed, premiered in 2012. It models the Four Seasons concertos as minimalist remixes. Sometimes Vivaldi and Richter walk in lockstep, sometimes Richter jerks the music into an insightful angle or stretches it through repetition into cosmic baroque landscapes. The result of recolored harmonic bases and surfaces reminiscent of electronic sound mats is a deafening and intelligently realized ambient Vivaldi.
Antti Tikkanen and the Finnish Baroque Orchestra will interpret the work this year in Helsinki’s Musiikkitalo as well as in Central Europe.

The Finnish Baroque Orchestra (FiBO) is known for its skilful performances, bold and innovative working methods and creative repertoire design.
fibo.fi

The concert is part of the AUF collaboration between Avanti!, UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra and Finnish Baroque Orchestra since autumn 2017.

Before the concert, there will be a Get more out of the performance event in the main hall of the Music Hall at 18:00.

 

15.9.2020 at 19.00 Helsinki Music Hall
At 18 Päälämpiö – More out of the performance (20 min)

UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra

Duke Ellington: Afro-Bossa (1963, 4:30)

Jukka Tiensuu: UMORI (2004, 19:00)
1. Kumous / Riscossa
2. Umous / Ahnung
3. Kumotus / Clair de lune
4. Kuumotus / Fever

Chamber Orchestra Avanti!
Heikki Kossi, foley artist

Sami Klemola (1973): Jack and the Specifics (2017, 22:00)
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

Interim

Finnish Baroque Orchestra (FiBO)
Antti Tikkanen, violin

Max Richter (1966-): Four Seasons Recomposed (2012, 45:00)
1. Spring
2. Summer
3. Autumn
4. Winter

 

Tickets: ticketmaster.fi

Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone at the Helsinki Music Centre

The staged ensemble version of composer Kaija Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone will be performed for the first time in Helsinki, at the Helsinki Music Centre’s Concert Hall, at Easter 2020.For audiences who might traditionally head to church and passions at Easter, the work offers an opportunity for a new kind of Easter experience. Through its philosophical ideas, the work will also appeal to a younger audience.

The Paris-based musical theatre group La Chambre aux échos commissioned a chamber orchestra version of La Passion de Simone and premiered it on 14 November 2013 at the Melos-Ethos festival in Bratislava, Slovakia. The production has since travelled to festivals (Saint-Denis, Bergen, Njord, Lublin), New York, Paris, Copenhagen and various opera houses in France.

In addition to La Chambre aux échos, the Finnish chamber orchestra Avanti! The conductor is Saariaho specialist Clément Mao-Takacs. The stage director is Aleksi Barrière.

 

Sun 12.4.2020, at 19:00

Mon 13.4.2020, at 16:00

 

Kaija Saariaho
composition

Amin Maalouf
libretto

Clément Mao-Takacs
conductor

Aleksi Barrière
steering

Chamber Orchestra Avanti!

Sayuri Araida
soprano soloist

Isabelle Seleskovitch
actress

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

AUF: With pleasure Avanti! – Feeling Free

Sat 28.3.2020 at 13:00

Music House, Helsinki

Guitarist Marzi Nyman, vibraphonist Arttu Takalo and French horn player Tero Toivonen join forces again with the Avant String Quartet. The concert’s repertoire, consisting mostly of compositions by the soloist trio, is a juicy fusion of jazz, classical and popular music. As has been said before about this septet: nothing is what it seems, but everything is what it sounds.

The concert is part of the AUF concert series by Avant, UMO and FiBO, produced in collaboration with Musiikkitalo. Top orchestras from different genres will invite listeners to discover a wide range of musical delicacies at the daytime concerts.

 

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/fi/tapahtumat/2020-03-28/auf-ilolla-avanti

ZENG – Lotta Wennäkoski’s 50th anniversary concert

Avanti! celebrates Lotta Wennäkoski’s 50th birthday with a concert of her chamber orchestra works from over the years. During the programme, Wennäkoski herself will also take to the stage to perform Hungarian folk music.

Sat 8.2.2020 at 19.00
ZENG – Lotta Wennäkoski’s 50th anniversary concert

Ballroom G18 (Yrjönkatu 18, Helsinki)

József Hárs, conductor
Virpi Räisänen, mezzo-soprano
Eero Saunamäki, recorder
Heikki Nikula, bass clarinet
Ville Syrjäläinen, percussion

Chamber Orchestra Avanti!

Lotta Wennäkoski:

I stället för vingar (2014-16)
Hele (2018)
Kuule II (2007)
Zeng (2018-19)

and Hungarian folk songs

 

Tickets:

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

New collaboration Amos Rex & Avanti! – From notes to canvas 16.11.

The first-ever concert in the exhibition space of the Amos Rex Museum will explore the relationship between paintings and music by artist Birger Carlstedt. The Avant Chamber Orchestra will feature soprano Mari Palo as soloist. The Birger Carlstedt retrospective exhibition opens on 11 October.

The “From notes to canvas” concert is a collaboration between the museum and the Avant Chamber Orchestra. Opening at Amos Rex in October, the exhibition presents Birger Carlstedt (1907-1975), one of the most important pioneers of modern Finnish visual art, for whom Paris in the 1920s and the music of the time were central. Experimenting with Expressionist, Cubist and Surrealist elements, the artist’s musical influences are evident in his works and can be seen in the titles of paintings such as Debussy’s Sunken Cathedral and Ravel’s Noctuelles. Carlstedt was also familiar with the jazz that took over Paris in the early decades of the last century.

Carlstedt married the Danish-born pianist France Ellegaard, known for her interpretations of Chopin, in 1949, a marriage that helped strengthen the link between music and Carlstedt’s art. He brought the Parisian atmosphere to Finland, for example, when he designed the interior of Le Chat Doré, a restaurant owned by his mother on Unionkatu in Helsinki in 1929.

In the Avant Chamber Orchestra concert, fashionable and avant-garde Paris will be played not only by Ravel, Debussy and Stravinsky, but also by Jean Barraqué’s electronic Étude and Sidney Bechet’s jazz. A post-jazz American flavour will be added by Buck Ram and The Three Suns inTwilight time. There is also a place for Aarre Merikanto, whose modernism was treated as badly as Carlstedt’s by the domestic media. Avant’s soloist is the multi-talented soprano Mari Palo.

Mari Palo is a versatile singer who takes a down-to-earth approach to everything she does. She started her vocal studies at the Central Ostrobothnia Conservatory and graduated with a Master of Music from the Sibelius Academy.

Mari Palo is a regular guest at productions of Finnish regional operas and free companies and at the Savonlinna Opera Festival. As a Lied singer and orchestral soloist, she has performed all over the world. He has been a regular guest at the Finnish National Opera since 1999.

In addition to her full concert calendar, Mari Palo also passes on her knowledge to future colleagues. She works as a singing teacher at Kokkola University of Applied Sciences

Avanti! Rex: From notes to canvas

16.11.2019 at 14.00

Avanti! & soprano Mari Palo

Amos Rex museum Studio Rex

Concert ends at 15.15, no intermission

Tickets: 25€/15€

 

PROGRAMME:

Frédéric Chopin: Valssi in C sharp minor op. 64 (1847)
Igor Stravinsky: Three pieces for string quartet (1914)
Jean Barraqué: Étude (1954)
Roger Sinclair – Henri Bataille: La Boîte à musique, chanson française (1940)
Igor Stravinsky: Serenata from the ballet Pulcinella (1920)
Maurice Ravel: Noctuelles from the piano suite Miroirs (1905)
Aarre Merikanto: Piano Trio (1917), parts II Andante and III Vivace
Buck Ram, Artie Dunn, Al & Morty Nevins: Twilight time (1944)
Sidney Bechet: Petite fleur (1952)
Claude Debussy: La cathédrale engloutie, 1. Prelude (1910)

Pekka Haapanen appointed as Avant’s new producer

Avant’s office staff got a new member with the arrival of producer Pekka Haapanen. He has gained experience in classical music administration, for example as a substitute for the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra’s publicist and producer. She has become acquainted with the festival scene as a spokesperson for the Crusell Week in Uusikaupunki.

Originally from Loimaa, Haapanen initially studied general literature at the University of Turku, but later changed his major to musicology. Haapanen, who describes himself as a “happy avant-garde person”, will move to Helsinki with his new job in August.

Avanti! Classics of All Time concert in Mäntsälä 22.9.2019

Sun 22.9.2019 at 18.00

Mäntsälä Church (Old Porvoontie, Mäntsälä)

Avanti! will play classics from the baroque, romantic, jazz and folk music genres at Mäntsälä Church on 22 September at 6 pm. The concert will conclude with a steak dinner featuring György Ligeti’s String Quartet No. 1.

The All Time Classics concert is part of a joint AUF series by Avant, UMO and FiBO, which will be performed in Porvoo, Mäntsälä and Askola during 2019. Top orchestras from different genres will invite listeners to experience a wide range of musical delicacies.

Performers:

Eriikka Maalismaa, violin

Terhi Paldanius, violin

Riitta-Liisa Ristiluoma, viola

Mikko Ivars, cello

Kari Kriikku, clarinet

Jouko Laivuori, piano

Programme:

A mix of Beethoven and contemporary music:

Jukka Tiensuu: Tombeau de Beethoven

A romantic classic:

Robert Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-flat major op. 47, Part II:

In moto d’una marchia, un poco largamente

A folk music classic:

Béla Bartók’s duos for two violins and Finnish folk music

A baroque classic:

Carlo Farina: Capriccio stravagante

A jazz classic:

Duke Ellington: Mood Indigo

sov. Seppo Kantonen

A new music classic:

György Ligeti: String Quartet No 1, “Métamorphoses nocturnes ”

 

Tickets: 15€, children’s ticket 10€ (<18 years)

More information about tickets on the Mäntsälä Cultural Services website.