It is with pleasure to invite you to our Korvat Auki concert commencing on the 27th of May at 17:00. The concert is open to everyone and is streamed live on Hietsun Paviljonki’s YouTube Channel (Please consider subscribing to their channel so you won’t miss the event).
This online concert is co-organised by Korvat Auki and Töölön kaupunginosat – Töölö ry association.
Our concerts and activities this season are supported by Helsinki city.
Our composers:
- Silav û Moi (Altan Karakoç)
- Abstractions II b (Pilar Miralles)
- Hotkoi (Lauri Supponen)
- breakFAST (Vahid Hosseini)
- Sustain (Antti Tolvi)
- Kolme lyhyttä kappaletta (Lauri Mäntysaari)
- Cantique (Niilo Junnikkala)
- toinen toistansa seuraten… (Leevi Räsänen)
Producers:
Performers:
- Niina Ranta (piano)
- Yonatan Quemado (violin)
- Mariola Aniolek (piano)
- Aino Szalai (violin)
The programme of the concert is as follows:
Abstractions IIb: Pilar Miralles
Pilar Miralles (1997) is a Spanish composer set in Helsinki. She studied a double instrumental specialty in flute and piano and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Composition from Granada, Spain. In 2020 she completed a Master’s Degree in Electroacoustic Composition at the Higher Center of Musical Education “Katarina Gurska” of Madrid, tutored by Sergio Luque. She is currently in her first year of the Master of Music in Composition at the Sibelius Academy of Uniarts Helsinki. She has composed for different ensembles in Spain, Czech Republic, France, Sweden, the USA and Finland. Regarding the electroacoustic practice, she is focused on algorithmic and stochastic sound synthesis using SuperCollider programming language, whereas regarding instrumental composition, she seeks a personal idiom based on the use of the most basic tools of the traditional western music language.
Abstractions IIb is the definitive version of Abstractions II, originally written for bassoon and piano. This work takes part in the Abstractions series of pieces, this time consisting of a reinterpretation of three traditional genres within a multimovement work: sonata, fugue and finale. Among its multiple referents, the figure of Polish composer Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986) is present especially throughout the third movement, which features a motive from the piano accompaniment of the third movement of his Sonatina for bassoon and piano, one of my most appreciated pieces of all times.
Kolme lyhyttä kappaletta: Lauri Mäntysaari
Lauri Mäntysaari on taidemusiikin säveltäjä, joka on voittanut mm. Haagin kamarimusiikkifestivaalin (2012), Milanon konservatorion (2012) sekä VocalEspoo-festivaalin (2014) kansainväliset kilpailut. Hänen tähänastinen pääteoksensa on kokoyön Vigilia (n. 60 min.), jonka ensimmäisen kokonaisesityksen toteuttaa Key Ensemble pääsiäisenä 2021. Viime aikoina Mäntysaaren kiinnostuksen kohteina ovat olleet spektraalisen harmonian sekä mikrointervallien tarjoamat mahdollisuudet, joita hyödynnetään mm. Elisa Järven soittamalle neljäsosasävelaskelpianolle sävelletyssä teoksessa Birdflight Impressions sekä tulevassa monologioopperassa Loputtomuus.
Jos on innostunut nykymusiikin säveltämisestä, alkaa nykyaikana kuulua marginaalin marginaaliin – johonkin, mikä on alaa tunteville äärimmäisen tärkeä, elämää ylläpitävä voima, mutta muille aivan vieras alue. Tällä oudolla alueella olisin nuorena sävellysopiskelijana vuonna 2003 ollut yksinäinen ilman omaa yhteisöämme, Korvat auki ry:tä. Onneksi oli säveltäviä ystäviä, joille saattoi jopa tuoda omia teoksiaan koska tahansa soitettaviksi.
“Yllättävä päätelmä” ja “Nokkela vastaus” ovat tuona aikana syntyneitä modernistisen, ehkä varhaiselle Webernille sukua olevan harmonian satunnaisia purskahduksia, joita minulla oli ilo soitella rakkaan kollegani Anna Huuskosen kanssa. Konserttilavalla miniatyyrit tuntuivat silloin liian pieniltä, mutta mieli muuttui Korvien nyt etsiessä nimenomaan lyhyitä viulu-pianoteoksia. 29.3. 2021 lisäsin sarjaan päätösosan “Hurja lento”.
BreakFAST: Vahid E. Hosseini
Born 1984, Tehran. Early teenage musical formation in The classical Dastgah music and the instrument Setar shaped the roots of his musical world and his “timbrical identity”. Started playing the piano at the age of 22, an experience that led him to an adventurous journey through a series of identity crises and into the fantasies of a cosmopolitan musical language. He studied composition in Italy with Paolo Aralla and took part in the Chigiana academy courses with Salvatore Sciarrino. He was also a student of Veli-Matti Puumala in the Sibelius Academy and took part in one of Tristan Murail’s masterclasses. His pieces have been performed by notable performers such as Nicola Baroni, Paolo Ravaglia, Francesco Dillon, Zagros Ensemble, Mikko Raasaka, and InterOrchestra conducted by Nader Mashayekhi. He lives and works between Bologna and Helsinki.
Toinen toistansa seuraten: Leevi Räsänen
Leevi Räsänen (s. 1997, Enonkoski) on helsinkiläinen säveltäjä ja pedagogi. Hänen tuotantonsa kuuluu vähän kaikenlaista elektronisesta musiikista aina kamarimusiikki-, vokaali-, kuoro- ja orkesteriteoksiin. Joskus niitä jopa esitetään! Leeville tärkeää on päästä tarpeeksi usein kotiin Itä-Suomeen ja kesäisin Savonlinnan Oopperajuhlille, ja että vapaa-aikaa on tarpeeksi. Silloin aika kuluu mm. konsolipelien ja hapanjuurileivän parissa tai pianon ääressä. Räsäselle säveltämisellä on tietynlainen terapeutin rooli, ja niin hänen teoksensa liittyvätkin usein ihmisenä olemiseen ja inhimillisyyteen. Musiikillisia esikuvia Räsäsellä ei juuri ole: ”Mietin harvoin, pidänkö jostain musiikista vaiko en, sillä useimmiten lähes kaikki musiikit osoittautuvat sitä mielenkiintoisemmiksi, mitä enemmän niiden parissa viettää aikaa musisoiden, analysoiden tai kuunnellen. Tässä on jotakin, mistä oppia voisi ottaa useampaankin yhteyteen: useimmiten asiat joita pelkäämme tai joita kohtaan tunnemme negatiivisesti, ovatkin oikeastaan asioita, joita emme vain ymmärrä tarpeeksi hyvin.”
Program note:
Viululle ja pianolle sävelletty ”toinen toistansa seuraten…” on syntynyt pätkissä kolmen vuoden kuluessa, pitkälti muiden teosten seassa. Ajatus siihen syntyi kesällä 2018 vihellellessäni syvällä maan alla, Aleksanterinkadun kohdilla sijaitsevassa lastauslaiturihallissa ollessani tupakkatauolla silloisesta tarjoilijan työstäni. Vihellykset kaikuivat ja kimpoilivat hallin seiniä pitkin ja jäivät mieleeni. Liekö tästä johtui se, että samana päivänä kaadoin päälleni tarjottimellisen oluttuoppeja liukastuessani keskellä salia. Teos sijoittunee tuotantoni kompleksisimpaan päätyyn. Monilta osin varhain sävelletyt sektiot ovat säännöille perustuvia ja silloin koinkin, että joudun niitä runsaasti keksimään pystyäkseni säveltämään. Sittemmin tapani säveltää on muuttunut intuitioon perustuvaiseksi, mutta koen, että teoksessa nämä erilaiset lähestymistavat elävät sovussa toisiaan täydentäen, tai kenties toinen toistansa seuraten…
Sustain: Antti Tolvi
Antti Tolvi is a sound artist, composer and performer living in Kemiö Island. Antti has played over 300 shows around world in three continent. There is fourteen solo records under Anttis name and Antti has been part of over fifty record as composer and/or musician. Anttis sound installations has been showed widely around Finland. Antti has also composed, manuscript and performed in dance and theatre plays. Antti has been organizing annual Kiilan Äänipäivät sound art festival since 2014.
Silav û Moi: Altan Karakoc
Born in the occupied lands of Northern Kurdistan in 1987, Altan Karakoç is a Kurdish self-thought composer who is currently based in Finland. Following his initial studies that were started in 2010 with private lessons, Karakoç furthered his training in composition by attending counterpoint, harmony and orchestration courses until 2014 at various conservatories in Istanbul as a guest student. Shortly after this period, he studied composition with Turgut Erçetin between 2014-2016. Engaging with fine-tuned networks of microtonal harmonies, his works address the issues of perception within increased sonic-temporal resolutions, and have been performed by Sylvia Hinz, Ensemble Garage, Ergon Ensemble and many others with notable performances. In November 2016, Karakoç sought political asylum in Finland with his wife due to the repressive and brutal measures taken by the Turkish government against the Kurds and the other minority communities as well as organizations engaged in political activism. Since then he resides in Helsinki.
Program notes:
Silav û Moi means “hello” in Kurdish and Finnish, “Hello and Hello”. Given that craftsmanship in composition has more substantial imports regarding what I am concerned with as a composer, I always feel hesitant to draw attention to the political contexts from which my works stem.
Yet, I feel compelled to reflect on certain issues that I find highly problematic in our scene as a composer and a refugee, seeing more by the day that sufferings of people from different parts of the world are conceived merely as appropriated representations, which in turn entails addressing the undoings of the former and present political systems only through favored or sanctioned means.
An understanding as such, in my opinion, paves the way for making use of cultural or social references, which appear significantly reduced in political scale and viewed from a position, the orientation of which is set by privileged agencies.
Sadly, I see no evidence that proves the otherwise in the context of Turkish New Music, where certain composers holding privileged positions constantly victimize themselves with regard to the political grounds, on which they have never taken a clear stand.
The reason why you are reading this text and hearing the pertaining work that is coupled with it is three-fold: a) to raise awareness against the political mistreatments of certain states practicing genocide, assimilation and systematic racism against the Kurds in Turkey and other parts of occupied lands of the Kurdistan; b) to shed light on the processes inherent to these practices, which shape socio-cultural inscription of identity and collective memory, and explore how these processes interface with musical narratives; and c) to provide insights into the inner struggles of integrating as a refugee with a new set of political, cultural and social connotations, which constitute new signs, codes, and frontal relations bringing new challenges to work with narratives.
Accordingly, “variations” is conceived as a key in this work, yielding to fixed sonorities with continually changing perspectives, which articulates the conveying aspects of the formulated musical narratives that are used as formal indicators. But above all, “variations” is a formal indicator with its own unconditioned trajectories and sometimes conflicting narratives that aim to invite the audience to the inner world of a refugee.
Hotkoi: Lauri Supponen
Hailing from Helsinki, Lauri Supponen grew up in Brussels and studied composition in London and Berlin as well as in his current home town. Lauri also plays the oboe and contrabass. Lauri writes music as a continuum, cutting pieces out every now and then. The previous works affect the following and vice versa. Lauri’s compositional work is supported by Kone Foundation.
Hotkoi was written in London in 2013 at the request of Mikk Murdvee for his recital in Tallinn with pianist Sten Lassman.
Cantique: Niilo Junnikkala
Niilo Junnikkala (b. 1995) has studied piano performance with Teppo Koivisto and Risto-Matti Marin at the Sibelius Academy receiving his Master ́s degree in 2020, and composition privately with Igor Rogaljov (Conservatory of St. Petersburg). Since 2018 Junnikkala has been working in the Sibelius Academy, department of composition and music theory, as a teacher in score-reading. Junnikkala ́s musical output comprises works for various chamber ensembles and solo instruments (including four Sonatas for piano), vocal and choral compositions and a Symphony. In addition to composing writing is an important part of Junnikkala ́s work; his unpublished literary output includes both fiction and non-fiction.
