Sakari Oramo is Finland’s blue-eyed boy at the moment, having recently been appointed Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The appointment is not, however,...

Since the late 2010s, gender has finally become a widely debated and prominent topic in media discourses about classical music and composers. Contrary to what media...

In the summer 2019, the Kuhmo Chamber Music festival celebrates its 50th anniversary. To congratulate the one-of-a-kind festival, FMQ re-publishes Anu Karlson's article exploring the festival,...

The moment the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra begins to play, the listener finds himself swept along in a grip that does not relax until the echo of...

During the last three decades of his life, Sibelius was locked in a desperate struggle with the forces of creation, the expectations of those around him...

Finnish composers got together to form a society immediately after the war, in 1945. The following is a resume of the history of the first half...

Finland has taken the potato from Peru — potato in Finnish is peruna, by the way — and the tango from Argentina. Both these South American...

”Being a composer in Finland" means above all capturing the intellectual mood, and this also involves an understanding of the country's own traditions."

In 1994 FMQ addressed this question to two very significant, and oh so very different Finnish composer personalities, Paavo Heininen and Einojuhani Rautavaara. Tapani Länsiö, himself...