The name grabs your attention first of all: bemusing for Finns, Tampereen Ihankaikkinen Kuninkaallinen Tuomiokuoro is untranslatable as it stands and is given in English with matching whimsiness as The High and Mighty Royal Doomsday Choir of Tampere.
The untranslatability is in the neologism ‘ihankaikkinen’, which is a portmanteau of the Finnish idiom ‘ihan kaikki’ (absolutely everything) and the word ‘iankaikkinen’ (eternal or everlasting).
“For all its pompousness, it contains a spark of humour,” says Petra Poutanen, founder and conductor of the choir. The name as a whole comes across as describing a group with tongue firmly in cheek, but the notion of ‘absolutely everything’ means that “we’re not prepared to exclude anything from the art we create; we’re game for everything”.
The ‘doomsday’ element was introduced at the choir’s first Christmas party in late autumn 2019. This was around the time of the last Sunday of the church year, known in these parts as Judgement Sunday. The association is more evident when comparing the Finnish terms, doomsday = tuomiopäivä and Judgement Sunday = tuomiosunnuntai.
“The religious subtext of the name dovetails with our metaphysical themes, even though we look at religion critically. Adopting a name like this was a major branding exercise, and it began to govern what the choir was to become, because you can’t just perform any old repertoire with a name like that.”
Suomen kesä (Finnish Summer) by The High and Mighty Royal Doomsday Choir of Tampere.The lyrics are based on the Finnish and Karelian singing tradition, rune-singing.
Not your everyday choir
Poutanen’s background as an artist is also not entirely conventional. She has university degrees in folk music, kantele performance and ethnomusicology and has created a considerable career in writing and performing music for the theatre. She has studied areas as varied as throat singing, choral conducting in rhythm music and performing on the guzheng, a Chinese stringed instrument. Her solo-act alias Pelkkä Poutanen is an intense one-woman show that mixes voice and stringed instrument with live electronics.
“In 2019, I began to put together a choir of my own, because I wanted to base my work in Tampere instead of shuttling back and forth between various cities doing theatre gigs,” says Poutanen.
The number of people who signed up was quite a bit more than expected, partly because Poutanen had an established reputation as the conductor of the Tellus women’s choir. It was clear that this new ensemble was not to be just any choir. Applicants included many professional musicians but also many experienced professionals in other performing arts.
“And then there were people who had never sung in a choir or in an ensemble in their life. Because the range of competences was just too heterogeneous to make one group out of it, I ended up starting two new choirs.”
Petra Poutanen performing solo at WOMEX in 2024. Photo: Eric van Nieuwland
The more amateur-oriented group was named Väki (meaning ‘Crowd’ or ‘People’ but also ‘Might’ in its more archaic sense), and its repertoire focuses heavily on societal issues. The choirs joined forces for their first production, a miniature opera setting tales by Samuli Paulaharju, author and folklore collector. Poutanen had been involved in creating the work in the wilderness of Lapland a few years earlier. An extended version of this opera, titled Yöpuolia [Night Sides] is to be performed in the forests of the Pirkanmaa region in May 2025. The most extensive project of the Doomsday Choir to date is Vastauksia [Answers], a production addressing various ideological and metaphysical questions, which the choir performed at non-typical concert venues such as art galleries in refurbished industrial facilities in 2023 and 2024.
“The core idea was to make something rooted in folk music and world music that would include a lot of improvisation. Otherwise, I just wanted the project to develop under its own weight. The texts drive the form of the music to a great extent, which is why you can hear echoes of the traditions of vocal music, popular music and musical theatre,” Poutanen explains.
Choreography including a burlesque solo
“Although the music of the Doomsday Choir is not folk music, the group has several professional folk singers, and it is affiliated with the Uulu cultural collective, which focuses particularly on folk music,” says Ida Sofia Fleming, a visual artist, musician and actor who joined the choir last year.
Fleming graduated from the Fine Arts Academy with the major subjects of sculpture, installation art and performance art. In her youth, she played the piano, sang in a choir and wrote songs. She met Poutanen when she was an actor with the Tampere Student Theatre.
“The singers of the Doomsday Choir have so much stage experience that it felt only natural to perform everything from memory, to add movement to the performances and to use the character of the performance space as part of the performance. Not every choir has an in-house choreographer, let alone a burlesque soloist! You have to be able to do a lot more than sing to be in the Doomsday Choir,” Fleming says. In Yöpuolia, she has the chance to show her acting chops as well.
“In my own art, I mainly explore sound and space, and in Vastauksia I was able to draw on my experience, especially when we were very close to the audience while singing.”
Visuality forms an important part of the Doomsday Choir’s acts. Photo: Kim Saarinen
Jaakko Lenni-Taattola, stage director and cultural producer, also ended up in the Doomsday Choir because of his theatre connections. He was a founding member, rediscovering his interest in choral singing after a long break when he saw Tellus performing under Poutanen.
“When Petra put out the call for singers for a new mixed choir, I was among the first in line. The Doomsday Choir is more experimental and more multi-discipline than choirs in general, and I specifically wanted to be in a group with a recognisable mission like this,” Lenni-Taattola explains.
“I feel that I can make use of my strengths in the choreographic and stage stuff that we do. Although I work in the theatre, I haven’t acted myself in a long time, and now I can do that again.”
The Doomsday Choir does not have auditions as such. New members are sought through open-house rehearsals where the choir explores special talents that prospective members may have.
“We then leverage those skills as and when appropriate. A soloist opportunity can be a lot more than just singing a solo,” Poutanen points out.
“My fantasy is to create pyrotechnics with an angle grinder in a show,” Fleming reveals.
“And so it shall be! Live sculpture!” Poutanen responds with enthusiasm.
A choir without a conductor
So far, the Doomsday Choir has almost exclusively performed music written and concepts devised by its conductor. In performance, however, Poutanen rarely stands in front of her choir, preferring instead to sing with them on stage.
“When there is no conductor out front, every choir member has to bear responsibility for what they do. This is excellent for improving musical competence. When you are on stage as a person, you cannot hide behind being ‘just a musician’,” Poutanen says with a smile. One of her goals is to increase the use of choral improvisation and collective lyrics writing in the choir’s activities.
Fleming and Lenni-Taattola note that Doomsday Choir members are very active within the group – and outside it as well.
“In the choirs where I used to sing, it would have been unheard of for people to meet up at their own initiative to rehearse beyond the regular weekly rehearsals. Petra’s enthusiasm and immersion in this thing has a huge impact. It’s not just a hobby, it’s a part of who we are as artists,” says Fleming.
“I’ve never done so much homework in a choir in my life, nor have I ever sung so many world premieres in a row. I recognise much of the practices of the theatre in how Petra works: a collective approach to the material manifesting itself as a sense of community in the end product. In the theatre, it’s the rehearsal period that shapes how the performances will look,” Lenni-Taattola adds.”
Poutanen herself feels that choir members become more committed when they feel that they, as an individual, are an integral part of the performance instead just one of many people singing the same part.
“When the music is your own, you can always change the piece if something isn’t working. This is why we don’t sing the St Matthew Passion,” says Poutanen.
The Doomsday Choir forms an exceptional community. Photo: Kim Saarinen
Why is a choir?
The Doomsday Choir differs from the mainstream of the choral world not just in its repertoire but in its overall aesthetic. Although Poutanen is averse to competitions in music, the Doomsday Choir has nevertheless appeared in the Chorus Review at the Tampere Vocal Music Festival, an event where participating choirs are awarded gold and silver stamps, lending the proceedings a competition-ish vibe.
“We went there looking for things that we could benefit from. Preparing for the Chorus Review allows us to improve our musical performance, but I also want my singers to see something of the rest of the choral world. At a festival, you can hear how and what other choirs, often technically far more accomplished ones, are singing. This can perhaps take us down a notch from the hubris of thinking ourselves unique,” says Poutanen. For herself, the event helps her calibrate her artistic principles.
“I was confused for instance by the jury feedback where they said that the purpose of choral singing is to get better at it! And here’s me thinking that we sing because it’s a form of communication that is rooted deep in our genetic makeup, and improving your skills just happens along the way?” Poutanen says with measure of outrage.
Deep-level communication seems to be doing the trick: Vastauksia, for instance, sold out both of its runs. The audiences included many people that do not otherwise go to choral concerts.
“I believe it’s because of the surprising nature of the venues, a certain sense of adventure. The topics we deal with are very relevant in today’s world, and we always tailor our publicity to the production, including mystical or provocative elements as appropriate. We know that just having a cool poster isn’t enough to bring people in,” says Poutanen.
“When the venue isn’t a concert hall, the traditional setup of choir and audience falls apart, and singers take personal contact with the audience – not just during performances but before and after as well – the listener is presented with a quite unique experience,” Lenni-Taattola continues.
“Rituals are games of a kind, and adults enjoy playing games when given the chance,” Fleming notes.
Translation: Jaakko Mäntyjärvi
Featured photo: Kim Saarinen
