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Press releases Kuhmo Chamber Music exceeds its expectations Kuhmo begins with music of the planets Kuhmo Chamber Music plays to predators, too Kuhmo Culture Celebrates Winter for the 4th time January 1-7, 2012 Jolly July - a summer festival for all the family! Kuhmo Chamber Music also features visual art
Finnish Travel Quality Award goes to Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival Folk music and classical music meet at Kuhmo Kuhmo scholarship to Korean violinist Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival goes to Kostamus Kuhmo's second week hosts stars Savall, Penderecki and Kremer
Celebrating
chamber music at Kuhmo Press release 17.1.2012 Both chamber music and large-scale works at this year’s Kuhmo Festival Themes range from myths to the enigmas of the universe Kuhmo Chamber Music this year presents not only favourite items from the chamber-music repertoire but also large-scale works: two symphonies, two operas, Mozart’s Requiem and Haydn’s Creation. There are 70 concerts in all, given by such stars as the Kronos Quartet, the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir and Soile Isokoski. The two-week festival will run from July 15 to July 28. The programme this year is so wide and varied that Artistic Director Vladimir Mendelssohn refuses to single out any particular theme. “It could be God, visions, beauty, the limitations of man and the limitlessness of the universe,” he says. “Or it could be myths, memories, nature, wisdom or courage.” Some 170 top artists from Finland and abroad will be appearing at Kuhmo this summer. Among the familiar faces are pianists Paavali Jumppanen, Valeria Resjan, Roope Gröndahl and Henri Sigfridsson, violinists Hagai Shaham, Ilja Gringolts and Elina Vähälä, cellists David Cohen, Martti Rousi and Marko Ylönen, flutist Janne Thomsen and clarinettist Michel Lethiec. One of the most highly-acclaimed musicians of her generation, Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang, will be making her Kuhmo debut. Along with ten others, the list of international singers includes Soile Isokoski, Martin Alvarado, Jaakko Kortekangas and Mari Palo. The Kuhmo ensembles are the Kronos, Danel, Enesco and Meta4 Quartets and the Storioni Trio. This summer, visitors to Kuhmo can also hear a host of rising stars chosen on the basis of auditions. From the Cross to the Creation Kuhmo Chamber Music 2012 begins on Sunday July 15 with a concert of music of different religions. The Eric Ericson Chamber Choir will, among other things, be performing Bach’s Kreuzstab cantata and Rachmaninov’s All-night Vigil. The theme for the first Monday is opera and the evening culminates in a version of Carmen condensed by Peter Brook and Marius Constant. Carmen can be heard in Iisalmi on July 14, before the start of the actual festival. The first Tuesday is a real feast of traditional chamber music, being dedicated to great masters from Bach to Mendelssohn and some of their finest works. The theme for Wednesday is “twos”; it examines relationships between composers and presents collaborations between Brahms and Joseph Joachim, Robert and Clara Schumann. Religion is the theme for the day on Thursday July 19: rites and incantations, not forgetting Finland’s archaic Kalevalaic tradition. Friday conjures up visions of eternity, building up to Mozart’s Requiem in its original, unadulterated version. The first week rounds off with a Saturday concert looking at contrasts and conflicts: Salieri and Mozart, war and peace, for example. Sunday passes in a world of visions. The evening concert is peopled by spirits, ghosts and Erlkönig, this last as seen by three different composers. This year’s children’s event is devoted to poems on musical topics commissioned specially for the festival. Monday July 23 will be spent in nocturnal mood, the theme being serenades and music for the night. Both waltzes and sonatas can be heard on Tuesday, and the day ends with an eagerly-awaited recital by Soile Isokoski. Wednesday begins by travelling back a century in time and ends with Piazzolla’s opera Maria de Buenos Aires – a great hit at Kuhmo two years ago. Thursday July 26 is songs-without-words day except for the finale: Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross. Friday spotlights legendary line-ups in ages past but also a legend in the present day: the Kronos Quartet, winner of many prizes and awards. Almost all the works performed by the Kronos Quartet will receive their first hearing in Finland. The theme for Saturday is enigmas of the universe, and finally The Creation, with a host of distinguished artists and the Tapiola Chamber Choir. As usual, there will be exhibitions during the festival at the Kuhmo Arts Centre: paintings by Outi Heiskanen and graphic art by Janne Laine in the foyer, and sculpture by Jaana Bombin in the Juttua café window gallery. Kuhmo Osuuspankki bank is putting on an exhibition of landscape photos by I.K. Inha. Concerts between now and the summer Kuhmo Chamber Music concerts can be heard this year before the festival season proper. The new partner in the Helsinki region is the Villa Gyllenberg. This art museum’s big Helene Schjerfbeck exhibition, opening in the spring, ties in with concerts introducing young pianists on March 15 and 22. The traditional Kuhmo Chamber Music spring concert is on May 3. The other Kuhmo spring concerts are in Kuhmo in connection with the Humankind and the Cosmos event on March 16–18, at the Hämeenlinna Verkatehdas on March 20, and the Finnish Institute in Paris on May 9. Concurrent with the festival will be the traditional Kuhmo music courses under their Artistic Director Junio Kimanen. These courses, intended primarily for future music professionals, are taught by festival artists. Students on the courses will appear in concerts of their own and together with their teachers at three chamber-music workshops, led by Konstantin Bogino, Yuval Gotlibovich and Anna Gebert. During the festival there will also be poetry and music at the Live Poets’ Club sessions. Attendance at the festival has this year been made easier for young people in particular. The festival’s main partner, the OP-Pohjola Group is offering free tickets for youngsters aged 10-18 accompanying a paying adult. This offer is for a maximum of two tickets per youngster and the number of free tickets per concert is limited. Held since 1970, Kuhmo Chamber Music has long been Finland’s biggest chamber-music festival in terms of attendance figures. Its concerts are held in the acoustically excellent Kuhmo Arts Centre opened in 1993, the traditional Kontio School and Kuhmo Church. Some concerts are also held in Lentiira Church, Vuokatti and Iisalmi. This summer, for the first time, the Sokos Hotel Vuokatti is offering Kuhmo packages comprising concert tickets, transport and accommodation. Kuhmo Chamber Music’s partner for 2012 is the OP-Pohjola Group. Its Friends are Canorama Oy, E.ON, F-Musiikki Oy, Kainuun Sanomat, Kaisanet Oy, the Etera Mutual Pension Insurance Company, Kuhmo Oy, Osuuskauppa Maakunta, Toyota Auto Finland Oy and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Grants have also been received from the Ministry of Education and Culture, the City of Kuhmo, the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. The festival budget is one million euros. Further info: Kuhmo Chamber Music, tel. +358 (0)8 652 0936 Press release 23.7.2011 Kuhmo Chamber Music exceeds its expectations
Kuhmo Chamber Music this year exceeded its audience target. Finland’s biggest chamber music festival, it attracted two-thousand more visitors than it did a year ago, despite forecasts for a figure on a par with that for 2010. The total audience figure by the closing day of the festival was calculated as being about 37,000.
During the festival there were 76 concerts at which over 140 artists performed. The good audience turn-out was due in particular to the even distribution over all the events. Eight of the concerts were sold out. In addition to Kuhmo, there were concerts at Vuokatti in Sotkamo and at the Kuikka base camp (Kuikan Kämppä) near the Russian border.
Next summer Kuhmo Chamber Music will run for two weeks from July 15 to 28. As before, there will be five or six concerts a day. Some of the performers will be new, but very many of the familiar faces will be back. At least the Danel, Meta4 and Enesco are among the quartets that have promised to return.
Vladimir Mendelssohn, the festival’s Artistic Director, promises some transcriptions suitable for Kuhmo’s musicians of great works in the musical repertoire. In recent years it has also been the custom to perform some opera at Kuhmo. Next summer this will be the popular opera Carmen in a version by Peter Brook that reduces it to four soloists. There are also plans for performing an operetta for the first time in Kuhmo.
One of the overall themes of the festival will be religions as manifest in different ways: ritual dances, biblical music, Buddhism, Orthodoxy and Islam – all in perfect harmony. Next summer will be the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival’s 43rd season.
The festival budget will continue to balance. Ticket revenue will amount to just over €480,000 and represent half of the budget of €990,000. The remaining funding will come from the Ministry of Education and Culture, the City of Kuhmo, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Partners and Friends. The Partner for 2012 is the OP-Pohjola Group and the Friends are Canorama Oy, E.ON, F-Musiikki Oy, Kainuun Sanomat Oy, Kaisanet Oy, the Etera Mutual Pension Insurance Company, Kuhmo Oy, the Osuuskauppa Maakunta cooperative, Toyota Auto Finland Oy, UPM – The Biofore Company, and VTT, The Technical Research Centre of Finland.
Kuhmo begins with music of the planets
Kuhmo Chamber Music, a festival rich in tradition, got under way yesterday with a concert in three parts and two places playing music of the planets. Culminating in Mahler’s Lied von der Erde, the evening marked the beginning of a two-week festival of 75 events and 140 top musicians, Finnish and international. Also taking part in the festival are such illustrious ensembles as the Borodin, Danel and Meta4 quartets and the UMO Jazz Orchestra. Kuhmo Chamber Music ends on Saturday July 23 with concerts on the theme of the Global Village.
Over the next two weeks, the Kuhmo festival will travel on the Orient Express with some occasional sidetracking, pluck the strings of the soul, introduce pupils and teachers, be filled with passion, journey in time, dream, get in Latin mood, look at musical paintings and indulge in a little play. The overall theme spanning all the music, from the first to the very last note, is music’s great metamorphosis, the history of borrowings, teachings and influences.
The programme masterminded by Vladimir Mendelssohn takes in both familiar classics and surprises. Each summer Kuhmo also features premieres. This year it is an additional movement to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, commissioned from Jukka Tiensuu.
The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, established in 1970, is now in its 42nd season. Known for its distinctive, easy-going atmosphere, it has long been Finland’s biggest chamber music festival in terms of audience figures. Booking has been brisk again this year, and demand has been steady for all the concerts. Now, at the start of the festival, tickets are still available for all the events. Last year 36,000 concert attendances were recorded, and the forecast is for a similar figure this year.
The budget for the 2011 festival is €990,000. Ticket sales account for half the revenue, the other half being met by the Ministry of Education and Culture, the City of Kuhmo and sponsors. Over 300 people, most of them voluntary workers, are this year involved in the organisation. Music courses under the artistic direction of Junio Kimanen are being held at the same time, and during the festival there is an exhibition at the Kuhmo Arts Centre of graphic art by Esa Riippa and glass works by Vesa Varrela.
The partner to this year’s festival is the OP-Pohjola Group and the friends are Canorama Oy, E.ON, F-Musiikki Oy, Kainuun Sanomat Oy, Kaisanet Oy, the Etera Mutual Pension Insurance Company, Kuhmo Oy, the Osuuskauppa Maakunta cooperative, Toyota Auto Finland Oy, UPM – The Biofore Company, and VTT, The Technical Research Centre of Finland. Funds have also been received from the Ministry of Education and Culture, the City of Kuhmo and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
The Kuhmo Chamber Music press office is open during the festival from 10 am to 6 pm on Mondays to Saturdays and from 11 am to 3 pm on Sundays. Tel. +358 8 6155 5431 or 6155 5432 Kuhmo Chamber Music plays to predators, too
This summer the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival is to hold a second concert out in the wilds, at the Kuikka base camp hide (Kuikan kämppä) at Kivikiekki on Finland’s eastern border, 60 km from the centre of Kuhmo. This hide has become familiar in recent years as the base camp of nature photographer Lassi Rautiainen and for safaris for people hoping spot bears, wolves, and wolverines.
Thanks to this concert, both predators and music lovers can enjoy the best that Kuhmo Chamber Music has to offer. Venturing out into the wilds will be Alberto Mesirca, guitar, Carlo Torlontano, alpenhorn, Odile Simon, double bass, Sara Etelävuori, violin, and the Enesco Quartet. The programme will consist of music for guitar, Leopold Mozart’s Sinfonia Pastorella in G major, Caprices by Nicolò Paganini and the Romanian Rhapsody by George Enescu.
The concert will begin at 6.45 pm on Friday July 22 and last just over an hour. There will then be a coffee break, after which Lassi Rautiainen will show some of his nature photos to anyone interested. Admission to the concert is free. The first Kuhmo Chamber Music out-of-town concert is equally far from the centre of Kuhmo, but at the Sokos Hotel in the middle of the Vuokatti tourist resort. This concert will begin at 8.15 pm on July 13.
Programme for the Kuikka base camp concert:
Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909):
How to get to the Kuikka base camp From the centre of Kuhmo (the market square), drive down Koulukatu, which continues as Lentiirantie in the direction of Suomussalmi for about 5 km. Turn right into Hukkajärventie (the sign says Hukkajärvi/Kiekinkoski). Follow Hukkajärventie for about 42 km, then turn left into Kivikiekintie (the sign says Kuikan kämppä and Alasenkämppä). Follow Kivikiekintie for about 9½ km and then turn right to Kuikan kämppä. The address of the Kuikka base camp (Kuikan kämppä) is Kivikiekintie 938.
Further info: Kuhmo Chamber Music, tel. 08 652 0936 Lassi Rautiainen/Articmedia, www.articmedia.fi
Kuhmo Culture Celebrates Winter for the 4th fime January 1-7, 2012 Exhibitions, music, nature photos, dance, film and meeting with a writer
Kuhmo Culture Celebrates Winter will be held for the fourth time on January 1-7, 2012. A joint arena for the organisers and artists of various events, some of them internationally-acclaimed, it is a showcase for some of the best Kuhmo culture: music of many kinds, dance, exhibitions, film, nature photo and literary evenings.
The week begins on Sunday January 1 with the opening of the art exhibition Latitude 64 by a group of artists examining mankind’s place in the local environment under the overall heading of Landscapes of the Mind. The Latitude 64 artists, Klaus von Matt and Heikki A. Kovalainen, address the theme each in their own way.
Klaus von Matt observes the semantics of the sky as the ongoing, timeless transformation of light and form, as a dialogue between disappearance and reappearance. His photographs are not intended to be conventional landscapes; rather, in adopting a conceptual approach, he seeks to communicate the essence of random changes in greater depth. Six years of daily outdoor photographing form a continuum with two earlier indoor art processes. The photos by Klaus von Matt will be on display at the Kuhmo Arts Centre and the exhibition will be open from 3 pm on January 1 to the end of the month.
For his doctorate in philosophy Heikki Kovalainen studied the link between the self and the world. This is also the theme of his talk (in Finnish) during Kuhmo Culture Celebrates Winter. His photos present images of the towns familiar to him: Kuhmo, Tampere and Helsinki. The scenes are pictured in a sparing light in which the colours acquire a new meaning that emphasises their shape. The strong contrasts turn everyday places into almost abstract shadow variations. In their delicate compositions the shots are in fact like pictures of inwardness – landscapes of their maker’s mind.
Also on Sunday evening, at 6 pm, is the Lentua Sinfonietta’s traditional New Year’s Day concert. The programme for this will consist of exciting and lyrical ballet and stage music by Aram Khachaturian, and music from films. The orchestra of about 40 players will be conducted by Jukka-Pekka Kuusela.
Monday January 2 will be Writer’s Night at Kuhmo Library at 6 pm, in the company of writer, journalist and translator Sirpa Kähkönen. Her first books (in Finnish) were novels for young readers, but she made her real breakthrough with her historical Kuopio series. The novels are set in the wooden-house district of Kuopio in the 1930s and during the Second World War. They paint a lively portrait of the working-class milieu and its characters, and the Savo dialect is pleasing to the ear. The bleak and at times traumatic description of wartime is alleviated by local humour. In 2010 Sirpa Kähkönen published a non-fiction book on the subject [Vihan ja rakkauden liekit. Kohtalona 1930-luvun Suomi] that was nominated for the 2010 Finlandia Prize for non-fiction.
On Tuesday January 3 there will be a nature photo evening at the Petola Nature Centre, beginning at 6 pm. Kimmo Salminen has photographed the wolverine, an animal rare both in Finland and the rest of the world, all year round at Lieksa in Eastern Finland. At the Petola evening Erä-Eero, alias nature-tour operator Eero Kortelainen, will give an illustrated talk (in Finnish) about this familiar yet little-known predator. The wolverine will also feature in the temporary Petola exhibition through to the early spring. The nature evening is at the same time the official opening of the exhibition.
Wednesday January 4 is devoted to a showing at the Pajakka Cinema at 6 pm of the film The Winter War (1989) directed by Pekka Parikka. The film premiere was on November 30, the day the first bombs of the Winter War fell on Helsinki. The film, which attracted a total audience of about 650,000, is based on the novel of the same name by Antti Tuuri (1984). It is a realistic war film with first-class actors (such as Taneli Mäkelä) and won six Jussi Prizes at home in Finland.
On Thursday January 5 Kuhmo Chamber Music will join forces with the Korpi Concert Association arranging concerts in the province of Kainuu since 2009. The programme for the concert starting at the Kuhmo Arts Centre at 6 pm will consist of Beethoven’s Trio in B flat major, Op.11 the Gassenhauer and Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. The performers will be Anna Kuvaja (piano) and Lauri Sallinen (clarinet), both Kuhmo-born, and Jukka Untamala (violin) and Petja Kainulainen (cello) familiar from the Kamus Quartet in Helsinki – all artists who have been involved with Kuhmo Chamber Music in many ways. After the concert there will be Tapas Kaenuu-style at the Neljä Kaesaa Lunc-Café (tickets €25, to be booked in advance).
Three events are scheduled for Twelfth Night, Friday January 6. At 3 pm a group Kalevala exhibition by Kainuu artists will be officially opened at Juminkeko. On display will be works by Ulla Harju, a ceramic artist from Suomussalmi, Urho Kähkönen, a Kuhmo painter, and Annikki Leinonen, a textile installation artist from Vaala. The exhibition will be on at Juminkeko until March 29.
At 6 pm there will be rune-singing from Viena Karelia in the Juttua Café of the Kuhmo Arts Centre. As once sang Arhippa Perttunen will feature tradition recorded from the rune-singer of that name, performed by Taito Hoffrén. Trained in the Sibelius Academy Folk Music Department, Taito Hoffrén is a singer, a versatile player and a composer. He has wide experience of working on theatre productions of many kinds, as a performer, composer and sound designer. In 2005 the Finnish Critics’ Association awarded him its honorary Spurs of Criticism. Hoffrén has made a profound study of the sung poetry of Arhippa Perttunen.
Twelfth Night ends at the Kainuu Hotel from 9 pm onwards with a Finnish-Senegalese music bridge jam session to the beat of Sakari Kukko and the Hum’balax Orchestra. Old-time Finnish dance music will be spiced with a good sprinkling of African seasoning. The orchestra consists of Senegalese musicians living in Finland and Finnish Sakari Kukko, who lives in Kuhmo. In the late 1970s Kukko played in Youossou N’Dour’s Etoile du Dakar in Senegal and began an alliance with Senegalese musicians. Rockadillo Records is to release a CD of their music in the autumn.
Kuhmo Culture Celebrates Winter ends on Saturday January 7 with a Dance Night from 6 pm onwards at the Kuhmo Arts Centre. During the evening there will be a performance of a dance work called Kynnyksellä (On the Threshold) to a choreography by Veli Lehtovaara and Mikko Hyvönen strongly contrasting the visible with the invisible. By concealing and revealing it creates tension, arousing emotions from bewilderment to humour. The four dancers, the minimalist visualisation and the sensitive subtle design merge to form a unique work that leads the audience to a threshold, the line between the familiar and the unfamiliar. Dancing in the work will, in addition to the two lads, be two girls: Terhi Kuokkanen and Elina Häyrynen (Off/Balance dance group from Jyväskylä). The work will be premiered during the Jyväskylä Festival on July 16 and is also on the programme for the Full Moon Dance Festival at Pyhäjärvi. During the evening there will also be a performance by young Kuhmo dancers and audiences will be able to admire the tremendous progress they have made over the years. The choreographer and director of their performance is Maija Palsio.
The aim of Kuhmo Culture Celebrates Winter is to present a wide selection of culture both to local residents and to people from further away. It is organised by Juminkeko, the Sommelo Folk Music Festival, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, the City of Kuhmo, the Kuhmo Arts Centre and the Petola Nature Centre. The graphic design is the work of Klaus von Matt.
Further info: www.kuhmowinter.fi or Sari Rusanen, Kuhmo Chamber Music, tel. 08 652 0936 Taina Hyvönen, City of Kuhmo, tel. 08 6155 5380 Sirpa or Markku Nieminen, Juminkeko, tel. 08 653 0671 Pekka Huttu-Hiltunen, Sommelo Folk Music Festival, tel. 044 250 1395 Eeva Pulkkinen, Petola Nature Centre, tel. 0205 64 6380 Matti-Jussi Pollari , Kuhmo Arts Centre, tel. 08 6155 5450
Jolly July – a summer festival for all the family!
Summer time – the moon is hiding but the nightingale is singing. In the woods a magic tree is decked with tales and poetry. Come with us and hit the trail, follow it oe’r hill and dale. Check out what is going on, Enjoy yourself, have lots of fun! For now’s the month of Jolly July, just come along and time will fly!
Jolly July is an important part of the Kuhmo summer: a time when there’s plenty for all the family to do together – culture, nature and exercise. Grasp the activity summer with both hands! Don’t be put off by the heat or the rain. July is just for you and your children, just for you and your parents and grandparents. Fun, dreams, music, silence, feeling good, being together and surprises.
Once again the Kuhmo Jolly July team promises all this and more besides in summer 2011. Jolly July will this year be held for the fifth time, from June 30 to July 31, taking in 121 first-class culture and nature events for children, families and the young-at-heart in general.
The founders and main organisers of Jolly July – Juminkeko, the Sommelo Folk Music Festival, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, the Kuhmo Arts Centre and the Petola Nature Centre – have recruited 10 other members for their Children’s Kuhmo team: Kainuun Pirtti Oy, Kainuu Orienteering Week, Kalevala Spirit Kuhmo, the Kuhmolainen Athletics Cup, the Tanssin Ystävät dance association, Kuhmo Library, the Kuhmo 4-H Club, the Kuhmo branch of the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, the Tuupala Museum and the Winter War Museum. Together they have created a programme of events lasting 32 days and packed with music, sport, handicrafts, nature trips, poetry and exhibitions.
Responsible for the music are the Sommelo Folk Music Festival, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, the Kuhmo branch of the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, and the Kuhmo Arts Centre. As their names suggest, Sommelo will be offering folk music, but also shadow and puppet theatre and story times, and the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival classical music: two children’s concerts, demonstrations of musical instruments, and fine concerts by students on the music courses. The summer musicians at the Kuhmo Arts Centre will be playing both classical and folk music, and also light music at their coffee concerts, and the Kuhmo branch of the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare will be bringing children’s music to Kuhmo at its Rokkiritari (Rock Knight) concert on July 2.
Kainuun Pirtti and the Kuhmo 4-H Club will be organising lots of fun with handicrafts. Visitors to the Kainuun Pirtti workshops can do various things with wool, and the 4-H Club will be looking not only at crafts but also at domestic animals.
Nature lovers should head for the exhibition tours arranged by the Petola Nature Centre and devoted to cubs. Different days will be set aside for the wolf, bear, wolverine and lynx.
Anyone wanting some fun and exercise may enter for the Kuhmolainen Athletics Cup or attend the Kainuu Orienteering Week events, or join a Tanssin Ystävät dance course. There will be running races and long-jump in the Cup, orienteering on graded tracks of course during the Orienteering Week, and modern dance, show dancing, hip hop and jazz dancing on the dance courses. And at the end of the dance course pupils can demonstrate what they have learnt at a show.
Verbal art is the domain of Kuhmo Library, which will be putting on nursery-rhyme sessions and a “Poetree” exhibition.
Information about the Kalevala, Finland’s national epic, will be provided by Juminkeko. Each day there will be a multi-media show and other activities connected with the Kalevala world. Plus, of course, a chance to explore the Juminkeko exhibitions and books.
The museums will be putting on special tours for children: the Tuupala house museum looking at life on the farm as seen by a young serving girl, and the Winter War Museum the wartime work of the little auxiliary girls. The summer programme of Kalevala Spirit Kuhmo includes a Kalevalaic triathlon made up of three events: walking on stilts, horseshoe throwing and long-jump without the run-up.
All of these will be available during Jolly July in summer 2011. Jolly July will officially begin at the Kuhmo Arts Centre at 6 pm on June 30 with a children’s concert by the summer musicians. The whole of the opening day will be packed with various events, for June 30 also marks the start of the Sommelo Folk Music Festival, including a work commissioned by Sommelo and a coffee concert by the summer musicians.
The idea behind Jolly July is to demonstrate to anyone working with children and young people the importance of quality culture and nature experiences to the favourable growth and development of the child. The events will, it is hoped, attract audiences and participants of all ages, because shared fun or thought-provoking moments linger as pleasant memories far into the future.
The marketing of Jolly July has been sponsored by Kuhmon Osuuspankki bank, Neste Kuhmo, Oy Kuhmon Etäpalvelukeskus Ltd, the Kuhmo Savings Bank Cultural Foundation and the local newspaper Kuhmolainen. The Jolly July balloons were funded by Neste Kuhmo and Oy Kuhmo Etäpalvelukeskus Ltd.
A Jolly July brochure has been published and information can also be found on the www.lastenkuhmo.fi website. The info on this website is regularly updated. The visual image of Jolly July is once again the work of Klaus von Matt.
Further info: www.lastenkuhmo.fi or members of the Children’s Kuhmo team: Juminkeko, Sirpa or Markku Nieminen, tel. +358 8 653 0670 Sommelo Folk Music Festival, Pekka Huttu-Hiltunen, tel.+358 044 250 1396 Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, Sari Rusanen, tel. +358 44 544 5162 Kuhmo Arts Centre, Matti-Jussi Pollari, tel. +358 8 6155 5451 Petola Nature Centre, Eeva Pulkkinen, tel. +358 205 64 6380 Kuhmo Chamber Music also features visual art Spotlight on Esa Riippa and Vesa Varrela Once again, visitors to Kuhmo Chamber Music can this year enjoy some visual art. On display at the Kuhmo Arts Centre will be graphic art by Esa Riippa and glass by Vesa Varrela at an exhibition open throughout the festival, from July 10 to 23. The subjects of Esa Riippa’s works are often landscapes and still lifes. Born of subtle shades and a distinctive brand of melancholy combined with unexpected elements, they have made Esa one of Finland’s best-loved graphic artists. Esa Riippa has held numerous exhibitions in Finland and many European countries since 1972 and has items in the collections of the Ateneum, Amos Anderson and other art museums. Winner of the State Prize for Art in 1977, he was awarded the Pro Finlandia medal in 2000. The sunny foyer of the Kuhmo Arts Centre does great justice to the colours, lights and reflections of the glass works by Vesa Varrela. For this exhibition Vesa is bringing along some large pieces he calls “surfboards” and unique blown glass. Vesa Varrela is known especially for his unique glass and his architectural installations. In his graphic and ornamental works he often combines glass with other materials. He has had works in nearly a hundred group exhibitions around the world, held many solo exhibitions and produced works of art for public premises. The by now traditional summer exhibition at Kuhmo Osuuspankki this year features paintings and graphic art by Finnish constructivists from the collections of the Pohjola Bank Art Foundation. This year’s artists are Sam Vanni, Ernst Mether-Borgström, Lars-Gunnar Nordström, Göran Augustson and Juhana Blomstedt. Produced jointly by the festival’s main partner OP-Pohjola Group and Kuhmo Osuuspankki the exhibition will be open from July 1 to 24.
Kuhmo Chamber Music in Paris Kuhmo Chamber Music and the Institut finlandais in Paris are continuing their collaboration with a concert at the Institute on May 10. On the programme will be music by Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Philippe Hersant, Leoš Janáček and Antonín Dvořák performed by familiar Kuhmo artists living in Paris. The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival and the Institut finlandais in Paris have been collaborating since 2000. For Kuhmo, the concert is a major opportunity to draw the attention of French travel agents and the media to the festival. Operating in the heart of Paris’s Quartier latin, the Institut finlandais seeks, by means of a varied programme of events, to promote familiarity with Finnish culture and science in France and to foster cooperation between the two countries. The Institute’s theme for this year is encountering the other. Appearing at the Cultural Centre this spring will, in addition to Kuhmo Chamber Music, be the Kivitasku contemporary dance company and Kaj Chydenius, alongside an exhibition of sculptures and paintings by Tapani Kokko. The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival will run this year in Kuhmo from July 10 to 23. The theme for 2011 is Metamorphoses. Further info: Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, tel. +358 8 652 0936, www.kuhmofestival.fi L’Institut finlandais, tel. +33 1 40 51 89 09, www.institut-finlandais.asso.fr Press release 20.1.2011 – The small town of Kuhmo has paid remarkable attention to the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival as a whole. This is a unique concept involving memorable although often quite modest venues and the beautiful nature in Kuhmo. Both the audience and musicians keep coming back to the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival year after year, opera singer Mari Palo explains the selection of the winner. Since 1970, this event has evolved into an internationally acclaimed chamber music festival that has nevertheless managed to maintain its unique air and reasonable proportions. One reason behind the ongoing popularity of the event is the famous “Kuhmo spirit”, or the close interaction between the musicians and the audience. The concert venues include the Kuhmo Arts Centre with its magnificent acoustics, the traditional Kontio School and the Kuhmo Church. Some concerts will also be held at the Lentiira Church and the Salakamari. A new venue to be introduced in the summer of 2011 is the Sokos Hotel Vuokatti. Suomenlinna gathers votes from the public Suomenlinna is one of Helsinki’s key attractions and is constantly growing and developing. It is popular not only among tourists but also among locals. This lively district is a great place to live and a functional recreational area and travel destination. In addition, the quality of services and activities is successfully developed in cooperation with the various operators and locals. Since Suomenlinna is a World Heritage Site, no renovation or restoration work is carried out without giving special consideration to UNESCO’s values. In the selection of the Finnish Travel Quality Award winner, great emphasis is placed on the high quality and constant development of the activities as well as the following characteristics: new experiences, innovations, environmental considerations and the best price-quality ratio. Last year’s award went to the City of Helsinki, which has invested heavily in its image as “Helsinki of the People” using original ideas such as the skating rink by the Central Railway Station in winter. The Finnish Travel Quality Award is hosted by the Finland Travel Bureau, Gloria magazines and the Finnish Fair Corporation, who hope this award will encourage the travel industry to improve the quality of travel products and services and enhance the experiences provided through them. The annual selection is made by a public figure who travels a lot. This year the opera singer Mari Palo had been invited to be the head judge. For further information, please contact: Press release 13.1.2011 Kuhmo Chamber Music will once again be featuring familiar classics and some surprising discoveries under its umbrella theme Metamorphoses. There will be 75 events in all, performed by 130 fine artists from Finland and abroad. The feast of chamber music begins with music associated with the planets on Sunday, July 10 and ends with a wide selection of works from the global village on Saturday, July 23. The festival will also travel on the Orient Express, pluck the strings of the soul, attend lessons, experience a frisson of passion, journey backwards and forwards in time, daydream, slip into Latin mode, gaze at musical paintings and generally have fun. But the great theme running right through the festival, from the first note to the last, is metamorphosis – the history of borrowings, doctrines and influences in music. One of the items on the programme for the concert in Kuhmo Church at 11 am on Tuesday, July 12 is Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048 by J.S. Bach. Jukka Tiensuu has been commissioned by the Festival to assume the role of Bach and to compose a second, middle movement for the Concerto. Top musicians from Finland and abroad Among the 21 violinists at Kuhmo will be Priya Mitchell, Antti Tikkanen, Minna Pensola and Elina Vähälä, among the pianists Paavali Jumppanen, Jeremy Menuhin, Henri Sigfridsson and 17 others familiar to Kuhmo audiences. The cellists will include Martti Rousi and Marko Ylönen, and the clarinettists Kari Kriikku, Michel Lethiec and Christoffer Sundqvist. Several singers, such as Charlotte Hellekant and Jaakko Kortekangas, can be heard at Kuhmo this summer. One particularly eagerly awaited vocal guest is Soile Isokoski. The ensembles will include the Borodin, Danel, Enescu and Meta4 quartets and the Storioni Trio. Also making its Kuhmo debut will be the UMO Jazz Orchestra. Kuhmo, earth and stars This year’s Kuhmo Chamber Music begins on Sunday, July 10 with a concert of works gazing at the planets, moon and earth. On the programme for the last concert that day is Mahler’s Lied von der Erde. The whole of Monday will be spent on the Orient Express, listening to what Kari Kriikku and co. have to say on the topic. Tuesday plucks the strings of the soul, and Wednesday is about lessons – students and teachers. Passion Thursday spotlights famous couples from Romeo and Juliet onwards. Some metamorphoses and a meeting with Faust have been fixed for Friday, and on Saturday, July 16 it will be time to step on a time machine. A carnival of musics in the global village The second Kuhmo week begins on Sunday, July 17 with the music of dreams. Monday keeps company with Paganini and his followers, and Tuesday catches a Latin beat. No fewer than six Strausses meet on Wednesday. Thursday, July 21 looks at colours and paintings in sound, and Friday is devoted to games. The last Kuhmo Chamber Music Saturday will be spent in the global village, travelling from a Viennese market all the way to Broadway. Audiences may hear anything from an alphorn to a big band, and music from Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen to an Ellington version of The Nutcracker. Chamber music for over 40 years The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival has been held since 1970 and has long been Finland’s biggest chamber music festival in terms of audience figures. In 2010 it was Finland’s fifth biggest festival according to the number of tickets sold (about 32,600) and attracted visitors from Australia to Canada and from Europe to Japan. It recorded about 36,000 concert attendances and the budget for this year is €990,000. The concerts are held at the Kuhmo Arts Centre, opened in 1993 and renowned for its excellent acoustics, the traditional Kontio School and Kuhmo Church. Some concerts are also held at Lentiira Church and the Salakamari. A new concert venue this summer is the Sokos Hotel Vuokatti. Concurrent with the festival are the traditional Kuhmo music courses under the artistic direction of Junio Kimanen. The teachers on these courses, designed primarily for future professionals, are members of the festival faculty and tuition is provided in the piano, stringed instruments and woodwinds. The course students also perform in concerts of their own. The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival further features poetry at meetings of the Live Poets club. The festival’s Partner in 2011 is the OP-Pohjola Group, and its Friends are Canorama Oy, E.ON, ET-lehti, F-Musiikki Oy, Kainuun Sanomat, Kaisanet Oy, the Etera Mutual Pension Insurance Company, Kuhmo Oy, Osuuskauppa Maakunta, UPM, Toyota Auto Finland Oy and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Grants are received from the Ministry of Education, the City of Kuhmo and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Further info: Music, exhibitions, nature photos, dance and movies
Kuhmo Culture Celebrates Winter - the winter cultural event jointly devised by Kuhmo’s cultural operators is to be held for the third time on January 1-8, 2011. Kuhmo Culture Celebrates Winter is a meeting place for nationally and internationally-acclaimed Kuhmo cultural events organisers and artists. The programme for winter 2011 presents the best examples of local culture: music and dance of many kinds, exhibitions, nature photos, movies and lots more.
Kuhmo Winter opens at Kuhmo Bookshop on Saturday January 1 with a memorial exhibition devoted to Timo Aarniala. Finnish cartoonist and illustrator Timo Aarniala (1945—2010) is remembered for his illustrations for novels and books of poetry, his underground cartoons and record covers. The Finnish Comics Society awarded him its Puupäähattu Prize in 2004.
Not only did Aarniala gain national recognition as a front-line underground artist, a teacher of visual communication and a film editor; he also had strong ties with Kuhmo. In addition to making short visits, he lived in Kuhmo in the late 1970s, when his wife, Inge-Maj, was provincial artist specialising in photography.
Underground art by Timo Aarniala will be on display in the Pajakka Hall of the Kuhmo Arts Centre on Saturday January 8. The producer of the memorial exhibition, Philip Donner, has made a documentary presenting the work of his friend of many years. The film includes interview statements collected by Donner and a wealth of lesser-known, previously unpublished Aarniala material.
The 1st of January is also celebrated with a New Year’s Concert at the Kuhmo Arts Centre. This concert will be given by the Sinfonietta Lentua Orchestra, which consists of young players from Kuhmo, the Kainuu region and Russia. The orchestra is conducted by Jukka-Pekka Kuusela, its founder and Artistic Director. The music of the evening will be Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, music from the ballet, Op. 71.
The Sinfonietta Lentua Orchestra and Jukka-Pekka Kuusela will also perform on Sunday January 2. In this family concert will include Three trees, Three sons by Olli Mustonen and the Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns. The narrator of the concert will be William Hall.
Sunday January 2 is also dedicated to Timo Linnasalo, an artist, film director, editor and sound recorder. Linnasalo worked in Kuhmo in 1970’s, and during this time he made his documentary films ”Väinö Heikkinen” (1975) about this man of his kind, and ”Kylä” (Village, 1976) telling about a Niva village in Kuhmo. The movie ”Vartioitu kylä 1944” (A Village under Guard) was filmed in 1978 based on the manuscript by Unto Heikura, a teacher from Kuhmo. This movie was the first direction of Linnasalo, and it won a “Jussi” – a Finnish movie reward. The films are shown at the cinema Pajakkakino, and both Linnasalo and Heikura will be present telling about their memories connected to these films. The films are in Finnish.
Monday January 3 offers music at the Kuhmo Church. Mari Mäntylä has specialised in decacorde, a rare 10-string form of guitar. Mäntylä actively gives concerts both as a soloist and as a chamber musician, and she cooperates with many composers in Finland and abroad. She also is a lecturer in guitar and chamber music at the Kuhmo College of music. Mäntylä won’t be the only performer of the concert: the second half of the concert she will play with her duofriend Kristina Kuusisto. Kuusisto’s instrument is bandoneon. The programme of the evening includes works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Pekka Jalkanen, Eric Satie and Francis Poulenc among others.
Tuesday January 4 the visitors will learn about the arctic summer in Greenland at the Petola Visitor Centre. Gergely Várkonyi, a doctor of zoology from the Friendship Park Research Centre will give a presentation about his research trips to Greenland. The summer there may have surprising similarities to our winter. – Or are the similarities closer to our summer in Finland?
The spotlight on Wednesday January 5 is on Finland’s oldest and biggest chamber music event, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival. The artists of the evening will be soprano Pia Freund and pianist Paavali Jumppanen. The programme includes songs by Jean Sibelius and a piano sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven.
An exhibition on the topic of Finland’s national epic, the Kalevela, opens at Juminkeko on Thursday January 6. The exhibition “Kalevala Matrix!” opens a new view to the innermost questions about the national roots of Finns. The visitor will be led deep into the mythology with today’s masters and wizards. The artist of the photograph and video installation is Kai Kuntola, and the music is composed by Sari Kaasinen.
The Kalevala theme continues in the evening, when Sommelo Folk Music Festival organizes a runo-singing concert named “Uroshämärä” (Male Groom) at the Café Juttua in the Kuhmo Arts Centre. Three significant contemporary runo-singers will give their interpretations of the tradition. Taito Hoffren is known as a singer, specialising in the songs of Arhippa Perttunen. Pekka Huttu-Hiltunen is a researcher, who wrote his dissertation about western Viena-Karelian runo-song tradition a couple of years ago. Professor emeritus Heikki Laitinen is a legend of runo-singing both as a performer and as a researcher. In addition to rune singing, the concert includes music played by kantele by Arja Kastinen.
Friday January 7 features a Night of Dance, when the stage of Lentua Hall will be taken by dancer, choreographer Reijo Kela, musician Heikki Laitinen and accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen, all internationally known artists. Their improvisation will be followed by young Kuhmo dancers and their performances.
Kuhmo Culture Celebrates Winter ends on Saturday January 8 with a Night of Rock. The Circulation, a band consisting of young musicians from Kuhmo, now studying elsewhere in Finland, take the stage at Kuhmo High School. The warm-up bands consist of the school’s own students.
The aim of Kuhmo Culture Celebrates Winter is to provide a wide range of culture both for local people and visitors from further afield. The Kuhmo Culture Celebrates Winter organisers - Juminkeko, the Sommelo Folk Music Festival, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, the culture department of the City of Kuhmo, the Kuhmo Arts Centre and the Petola Visitor Centre - invite holiday-makers from both Finland and abroad visit Kuhmo in winter.
The Kuhmo Culture Celebrates Winter visual image is designed by Klaus von Matt.
Further info:
or the organisers
Press release 24.7.2010Folk music and classical music meet at Kuhmo
Folklore and folk music influences belong to a many-sided topic, highlighted at the 2011 Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival. As before, traditional chamber music will have the leading role, although besides this, at least klezmer, jazz and flamenco, not forgetting Finnish folk music, will feature in the programme. Among the guest artists are Nigel Kennedy with his Krok Ensemble and Borodin-quartet. Eminent composers are expected to visit Kuhmo next year, as well.
During the festival, folk music will be performed in many forms, as such, as a source of inspiration, as well as, a subsurface influence.
-The folk music performances are like cherries on top of the cake, Artistic Director Vladimir Mendelssohn describes.
This summer, the concert schedule of the day was very tight, next summer the pace will be slowed down at noon. Next year, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival will be organized 10. - 23 July. Taking risks was worthwhile
Artistic Director Vladimir Mendelssohn says, that more risks were taken than ever before, in his time. One of them was the performance of three short operas, as that required a lot of work. In the course of six days, as many opera premieres were executed as in the whole season in many an opera house.
The abundance of contemporary music in the programme, at least as far as Kaija Saariaho is concerned, didn't turn out to be a risk. Several concerts, featuring her music, were sold out.
– Contemporary music was performed with much respect, in concerts together with music by Mozart and Brahms, not in separate concerts, Vladimir Mendelssohn says.
Getting young people to attend concerts by offering them a ticket free of charge, for two days, was a successful experiment. Also many local children participated as they were invited to perform in Britten's opera The Little Sweep.
32 000 tickets of admission were sold at this year's festival, and the number of concert goers amounts to approximately 36 000, while last year's figure was 38 898. The drop explains itself by the fact that there were fewer events than last year, 103 in all, of which 67, liable to charge. According to Director of Administration and Finance Sari Rusanen, budgeted sales target will be exceeded with 30 000 euros.
– The finances of the festival are sound and I feel safe planning next year's festival, says Sari Rusanen.
This year, the festival budget amounts to 980 000 euros. Half the festival's income is made of ticket receipts while the second half of the budget is granted by the Ministry of Education, the City of Kuhmo and the festival's sponsors. The 2010 Partner of Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival is the OP-Pohjola Group. In 2010, the festival's partners on Friendship level are Canorama Oy, E.ON, F-Musiikki Oy, the City of Helsinki, Kainuun Puhelinosuuskunta, Kainuun Sanomat, Etera Mutual Pension Insurance Company, Kuhmo Oy, Osuuskauppa Maakunta as a part of the S-group, Toyota Auto Finland Oy, UPM and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Further, operations are supported by the Ministry of Education, the City of Kuhmo, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of Spain, Helsinki.
Kuhmo scholarship to Korean violinist
Young Korean violinist Myung-Eun Lee was this year awarded the Kees Wiebenga Memorial Grant. At the Kuhmo Music Courses, Lee was the student of Mihaela Martin.
The Kees Wiebenga Scholarship is handed out to a particularly talented and deserving student. The scholarship amounts to 2000 € , and cannot be applied for. It also can be awarded and divided between several musicians, or given to a Kuhmo student from earlier years. .
Kees Wiebenga (1921–2001) was a great friend of Kuhmo and, as a banker, he helped Finnish post-war export business off to a good start. At the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival he met with an atmosphere, similar to the one that made him trust Finnish industry: idealism, trustworthy quality and straightforward, as well as fine relationships among people. He used to spread information about Kuhmo in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, and especially helped out young musicians in the beginning of their careers. According to his wish, the scholarship is handed out annually.
Further, scholarships were granted on the basis of taped qualifying performances. The scholarships granted by Kainuun Sanomat went to cellist Lauri Kankkunen (Finland), double bass player Thibault Bertin-Maghit (France/Canada), clarinetist Pjotr Zawadzki (Poland) and Mariko Hara (Japan/Germany). The Kainuun Puhelinosuuskunta grant went to pianist Joel Papinoja (Finland).
Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival goes to Kostamus
The Kostamus Chamber Music Festival gets reinforcement from Kuhmo. On Wednesday 21 July, at Kostamus, three artists from Kuhmo will appear. At the program of guitarist Alberto Mesirca, pianist Irina Zahharenkova and oboist Blanca Gleisner are works of Chopin, Britten, Cimarosa, Granados and Castelnuovo-Tedesco.
At Kostamus, Kuhmo's closest neighbouring city in Russia, a chamber music festival is organized for the 23rd time, already. The six days event starts at Kostamus on 20 July. In addition to chamber music, the audience will be treated with choir music, lied, folk music and jazz. At Kostamus, the Kuhmo guest performance has become a tradition, by now - last year and the year before, a string quartet from Kuhmo appeared at the Russian festival. Due to this festival, on 25 July, the Vartius frontier crossing point is kept open two hours longer than normal, i.e. until 23 o'clock.
Kuhmo's second week hosts stars Savall, Penderecki and Kremer
The second week of the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival is about to start, featuring themes relating to the Iron Curtain, the sea and mental landscapes. The guest stars of the week are Jordi Savall who will perform on Sunday, Krzysztof Penderecki, presenting his compositions on Thursday, as well as, Gidon Kremer and his ensemble Kremerata Baltica .
Ticket sale came off as planned and last week's heat wave didn't have any negative impact. Last week, there were five sold out concerts. In addition to the familiar classics, the audience especially appreciated the works of Kaija Saariaho and Astor Piazzolla.
Looking at the second week, Monday concerts number 35 and 36, relating to marine themes, are all booked up. On Tuesday, actually three concerts are booked up: the concert in the Lentiira church, the evening concert, featuring Bartok and Brahms at the Arts Centre, as well as, Pekka Kuusisto's and Iiro Rantala's concert. The second festival week offers at least five daily events, so there will be tickets available on the spot. This Sunday, the concerts of the Music Course start, free of charge.
Lasting for two weeks, the festival's final concerts take place on Saturday 24 July. Last year, the festival's 40th anniversary was celebrated at Kuhmo and audience numbers added up to nearly 39 000; this year, there are slightly less events and 38 000 are anticipated.
Celebrating chamber music at Kuhmo
Rich in tradition, Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival started on Sunday with the performance of The Little Sweep, Benjamin Britten's opera for young people. The festival will continue for two weeks and the last concerts will be heard on Saturday 24 July. Including Jordi Savalli and Gidon Kremer, 157 international and national top musicians will perform at about 70 events. Among the chamber music ensembles hosted by Kuhmo this year are the Danel Quartet, the Storioni Trio and the Meta4. Kaija Saariaho is the composer guest of the first festival week whereas the audience will meet with Krzysztof Penderecki during the second week.
Created by Vladimir Mendelssohn, the festival programme is versatile, featuring old and new musical material, familiar classics and pearls rarely heard. Storm and rain will be experienced at Kuhmo, at least musically speaking, music from both sides of the Iron Curtain will be explored, there will be dance performances, meetings with femmes fatales and contemplation in a romantic mood by the water.
In addition to chamber music, one special feature of this year's festival is the concert performance of three operas. The festival began with Britten's opera for children, later on will be the turn of María de Buenos Aires by Astor Piazzolla and Der Kaiser von Atlantis by Victor Ullman. The latest achievements in the field of chamber music are represented by Sebastian Fagerlund's Trio for clarinet , cello and piano, commissioned by the festival, as well as, two works awarded at the Kuhmo International Composition Competition.
Ticket sale is brisk
Founded in 1970, this festival is the 41st. Known for its distinctively friendly atmosphere, the festival has, owing to large attendance numbers, been Finland's biggest chamber music festival for a long time already. Advance sale has been brisk and slightly more tickets have been purchased than last summer. At he outset of the festival, two concerts are fully booked. Director of Administration and Finance Sari Rusanen anticipates audience numbers to reach approximately 38 000. Last year, more than 34 000 tickets were sold while a total of 39 000 concertgoers were registered.
This year, the festival budget amounts to 980 000 euros. Half the festival's income is made of ticket receipts while the second half of the budget is granted by the Ministry of Education, the City of Kuhmo and the festival's sponsors. 311 people participate in the festival organization, the bigger part of them are volunteers.
Also rich in tradition, the Kuhmo Music Courses are organized in connection with the festival, with Junio Kimanen as Artistic Director. At the Kuhmo Arts Center, a collection of the works of famous Kuhmo nature photographer Antti Leinonen will be on show.
The 2010 Partner of Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival is the OP-Pohjola Group. In 2010, the festival's partners on Friendship level are Canorama Oy, E.ON, F-Musiikki Oy, the City of Helsinki, Kainuun Puhelinosuuskunta, Kainuun Sanomat, Etera Mutual Pension Insurance Company, Kuhmo Oy, Osuuskauppa Maakunta as a part of the S-group, Toyota Auto Finland Oy, UPM and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Further, operations are supported by the Ministry of Education, the City of Kuhmo, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of Spain, in Helsinki.
Mon-Fri 11:00-18:00, Sun 11:00-15:00 Tel: (08) 6155 5431 or 6155 5432 Press Officer Juhani Koivisto, mobile 046 613 1968, in urgent matters Fax: (08) 652 1961 E-mail: press.festival@kuhmofestival.fi Press photos can be found at www.kuhmofestival.fi main menu Valokuvat JOLLY JULY – a summer festival for all the family!
Children, Grandpa, Granny, Jolly July is an important part of the Kuhmo summer: a time when there’s plenty for all the family to do together – culture, nature and exercise. Grasp the activity summer with both hands! Don’t be put off by the heat, the rain or the mosquitoes. July is just for you and your children, just for you and your parents and grandparents. Fun, dreams, music, silence, feeling good, being together and surprises. Once again the Kuhmo Jolly July team promises all this and more besides in its brochure for summer 2010. Jolly July will this year be held for the fourth time, from June 30 to July 31, taking in 140 first-class culture and nature events for children, families and the young-at-heart in general. The founders and main organisers of Jolly July - Juminkeko, the Sommelo Folk Music Festival, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, the Kuhmo Arts Centre and the Petola Nature Centre – have recruited 12 other members for their Children’s Kuhmo team: Kainuun Pirtti Oy, Kalevala Spirit Kuhmo, Kuhmolainen yleisurheilucup athletics cup, the Tanssin Ystävät dance association, the Kuhmo Kalevalaiset Naiset heritage association for women, the Kuhmo Adult Education Centre, Kuhmo Library, Kuhmo 4-H Club, the Lentua Society, the Kuhmo branch of the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, the Tuupala Museum and the Winter War Museum. Together they have created a programme of events lasting 32 days and packed with music, sport, handicrafts, nature trips, poetry and exhibitions. Responsible for the music are the Sommelo Folk Music Festival, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, the Kuhmo branch of the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, and the Kuhmo Arts Centre. As their names suggest, Sommelo will be offering folk music and the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival classical music. One special attraction this year is the children’s opera The Little Sweep by Benjamin Britten. The summer musicians at the Kuhmo Arts Centre will combine the two genres and introduce more besides at their coffee concerts, and the Kuhmo branch of the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare will be bringing to Kuhmo Dr. Orff, a group dedicated to making music for children. Kainuun Pirtti, the Kuhmo Adult Education Centre and the Kuhmo 4-H Club will be organising lots of fun with handicrafts. Visitors to the Kainuun Pirtti workshops can, for example, make boats out of rushes. The Adult Education Centre will be showing how to make a summer scarf and other things, while the 4-H folk will be looking not only at crafts but also at nature and animals, as befits their line of activity. All sorts of creatures may be spotted during the nature trips. The Lentua Society will be contributing bird-watching at a bird tower and an outing to spy out butterflies, beetles and other creepy-crawlies. Supplementing and adding depth to the nature programmes are the Peltola nature and exhibition trails. Anyone wanting some fun and exercise may enter for the Kuhmo Athletics Cup or join a Tanssin Ystävät dance course. There will be running races and long jump in the Cup, and modern dance, show dancing, hip hop and jazz dancing on the dance courses. And at the end of the dance course pupils can demonstrate what they have learnt at a show. Verbal art is the domain of Kuhmo Library and the Kalevalaiset Naiset heritage association for women. The former will be holding story times and a Teddy exhibition, the latter a poetry karaoke session at which children can read and listen to their own and others’ poems on Summer and Poetry Day, July 6. Information about the Kalevala, Finland’s national epic, will be provided by Juminkeko. Each day there will be a multi-media show and a chance to explore the Juminkeko exhibitions and books. New this year are the folklore sessions for tiny tots involving games, crafts and fairytales. The museums will be putting on special tours for children: the Tuupala house museum looking at life on the farm as seen by a young serving girl, and the Winter War Museum the wartime work of the little auxiliary girls. The summer programme of Kalevala Spirit Kuhmo includes a Kalevalaic art workshop and a drawing competition on the subject of characters in the Kalevala. All of these will be available during Jolly July in summer 2010. Jolly July will officially begin at the Kuhmo Arts Centre at 6 pm on June 30 with a children’s concert by the summer musicians. The idea behind Jolly July is to demonstrate to anyone working with children and young people the importance of quality culture and nature experiences to the favourable growth and development of the child. The events will, it is hoped, attract audiences and participants of all ages, because shared fun or thought-provoking moments linger as pleasant memories far into th6e future. The marketing of Jolly July has been sponsored by Kuhmon Osuuspankki bank. For further information please see or contact one of these team members: Kuhmo Chamber Music to exhibit nature photos by Antti Leinonen Kuhmo Chamber Music’s traditional summer exhibition is this year devoted to nature photos by Antti Leinonen. Occupying the leading role in the exhibition are bears and wolverines. Antti Leinonen, who lives in Kuhmo, is one of Finland’s best-known nature photographers and writers. Photos by him have been published in National Geographic, GEO and other magazines; he has twice been awarded Finland’s Nature Photo of the Year prize and has won a number of prizes in the BBC Wildlife competition. Antti has been holding exhibitions of his own since 1985 and has published many nature books on such subjects as deer, bears, wolverines and eagles. The NDR television company in Germany has made a documentary about him and wolverines. The exhibition, of about 30 photos, will be on display in the foyer of the Kuhmo Arts Centre throughout the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival. Further info:
Kuhmo full of chamber music and opera This coming summer, the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival is putting on a programme full of variety and surprises. The two-week festival will, while presenting familiar chamber music classics, also include some rarities and concert performances of three whole operas! Performing in the close on 70 concerts will be 150 Finnish and foreign artists from Gidon Kremer to Jordi Savall onwards. Audiences will also have a chance to meet two of today’s most celebrated composers: Kaija Saariaho during the first week of the festival and Krzysztof Penderecki during the second. The festival begins on Sunday July 11 with an opera by Britten and ends with a Schumann concerto on Saturday July 24. Kuhmo will be hit by rain and thunder, at least of the musical sort. It will also examine music on both sides of the Iron Curtain, get caught up in a dancing whirl, meet some femmes fatales and daydream by the lake. According to Artistic Director Vladimir Mendelssohn, the flow of the festival can be compared to that of a novel. Each day has a theme stated as a title and the theme subdivides into chapters. Top musicians from Finland and all over the world Among the festival artists will be violinists Gidon Kremer, Pekka Kuusisto, Priya Mitchell, Elina Vähälä and Vasile Pantir, pianists Laura Mikkola, Paavali Jumppanen, Heini Kärkkäinen, Juhani Lagerspetz and Konstantin Bogino, and cellists David Geringas, David Cohen, Martti Rousi and Frans Helmerson. Early music is the domain of the famous violist Jordi Savall. Vocal music will be represented by some of the finest talents of the young generation, such as Angelika Klas and the recent winners of the Karita Mattila Prize, Tuomas Katajala and Nicholas Söderlund. The summer’s string quartets are the Danel, Chilingirian, Enesco and Ardeo, and of course Kuhmo’s own resident Meta4 and as a first-timer the Finnish Quadrion. The Storioni Trio and the Kremerata Baltica will also be among the other ensembles. Kuhmo begins with opera The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival begins on Sunday July 11 with the opera The Little Sweep by Benjamin Britten. Monday will focus on summer sounds, come rain or shine. It will also introduce the main theme for the first week of the festival, the music of Kaija Saariaho. Tuesday will visit various gardens and end in nocturnal mood. Wednesday, dedicated to dynasties, will begin with music by the Bach family, including that of a distant relative, P.D.Q. Bach. The evening will pass in the company of the Mendelssohns and Schumanns and a performance of the seldom-heard Piano Concerto by Clara arranged by Robert Schumann. Thursday looks at queens of different heavens, femmes fatales from the Lorelei to Salome and to Maria of Buenos Aires in the opera by Astor Piazzolla. On Thursday as well, audiences can meet Kaija Saariaho and hear her talk about her works. Friday will head for Vienna, calling on Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven on the way to a great Schubertiade in the evening. The themes of the five Saturday concerts are mythical characters from Orpheus to the devil and the day will end with music from either side of the Iron Curtain. Waltzes and courtly dances played by Jordi Savall will be the order of the day on Sunday, in moods ranging from gypsy music to Purcell Festival ends with Kremer The second Kuhmo week begins with music on a water theme (Mare nostrum) and a rare experience – Messiaen performed on six ondes Martenot. The opera scheduled for Monday is The Emperor of Atlantis, a 20th century masterpiece composed by Viktor Ullmann. Tuesday is reserved for classics, but Pekka Kuusisto and Iiro Rantala will have a free hand in the evening for building their programme. On Wednesday Beethoven and Gubaidulina will meet Schubert and Prokofiev. Rounding off the day will be music by the festival’s eagerly-awaited guest composer Krzysztof Penderecki. Thursday has been set aside for Chopin and Russian composers. Friday will begin with Mozart, continue with Beethoven and end with a long concert retracing Zito the magician’s flights over the Check Point Charlie. Saturday July 24 will offer six concerts, and the final notes of the 2010 Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival will be played by Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica in a violin version of Schumann’s Cello Concerto. Two premieres Premieres have always been an essential part of the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, and this year there are two. The Trio for clarinet, cello and piano by Sebastian Fagerlund, jointly commissioned by Ondine Oy and the Kuhmo Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, will get its first hearing on July 24. Last year a number of works that had won prizes in the international composition competition were heard at Kuhmo. This year the competition harvest will include the string sextet Pine Tree, Dreaming by Matthew Whittall, to be premiered on July 12, and the Trio for clarinet, cello and piano entitled Three poems from the Afterworld by Jouko Tötterström, on July 17. There will be Kuhmo, if not Finnish, first performances of the Mozart Oboe Quintet and Beethoven Flute Quintet as well as many other seldom-heard scores by composers ranging from Bach to Sciarrino. Chamber music for over 40 years The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival has been held since 1970 and has long been Finland’s biggest chamber music festival in terms of audience figures. In 2009 it was Finland’s fourth biggest festival, attracting visitors from Australia to Canada and from Europe to Japan, and recorded 38,898 concert attendances. The budget for the 2010 festival is €980,000. The concerts are held at the Kuhmo Arts Centre, opened in 1993 and renowned for its excellent acoustics, the traditional Kontio School and Kuhmo Church. Some concerts are also held at Lentiira Church and the Salakamari. Concurrent with the festival are the traditional Kuhmo music courses under the artistic direction of Junio Kimanen. The teachers on these courses, designed primarily for future professionals, are members of the festival faculty and tuition is provided in piano, strings and woodwinds. The course students perform in concerts. The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival also features poetry at meetings of the Live Poets club. Partnership The Kuhmo Chamber Music partnership model operates at two levels: Partners and Friends. The work at both levels is sustained and goal-oriented, but that with Partners is more extensive. The festival’s Partner in 2010 is the OP-Pohjola Group, while Friends are Canorama Oy, the City of Helsinki, E.ON, the Etera Mutual Pension Insurance Company, F-Musiikki Oy, Kainuun Puhelinosuuskunta, Kainuun Sanomat, Kuhmo Oy, Osuuskunta Maakunta as part of the S-Group, UPM, Toyota Auto Finland Oy and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Grants are recieved from the Ministry of Education, the City of Kuhmo, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Spanish Embassy in Helsinki. The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival wishes to thank all its Partners, Friends and other sponsors. Further info
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