Sibelius Academy

Sibafest, an open-door event showcasing various artistic activities, education, and research conducted at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, was held in late January. The event, which celebrated its tenth anniversary, comprised concerts, engaging workshops, inspiring talks, and fascinating teaching demonstrations. As this collection of photographs demonstrates, classical repertoire and contemporary sounds took myriad fascinating and colourful forms.

What concrete actions have been taken to advance equality in the Finnish music industry? How can diversity be promoted? Researcher Heidi Partti, musician-pedagogue Puro Paju, festival director Linda Suolahti and communications head Sanni Kahilainen talk about programming, the possibilities of pedagogy and questioning the prevailing models.

Doctors of Music have been graduating from the Sibelius Academy over 30 years. The spectrum of research undertaken at the academy is broad, but its principal strength is in artistic competence, which helps open up new research prospects. Now that the value of the artist's knowhow for research is better understood, investment in post-doctoral research is growing.

Sakari Oramo is one of Finland’s international star conductors and is known for his extended engagements with orchestras and for his sense of responsibility. During the Year of the Coronavirus, his duties with his orchestras in London and Stockholm were suspended almost completely, but his new job as Professor of Orchestral Training and Orchestra Conducting with the world-famous conducting class of the Sibelius Academy has kept him busy. Here, he is responsible not only for Finland’s reputation in orchestra conducting but also for our standard of orchestral playing, which has recently become a cause for concern.

Folklore narratives, binaural recording techniques, free improvisation and electronics are some of violinist Meriheini Luoto’s tools.

Ida Moberg (1859–1947) wished to command ensembles that produced a large sound while also touching human emotions: Most of her output is for orchestra or choir or both. The topics of her works largely has to do with individual’s spiritual metamorphosis.

A small country must learn how to adapt, cooperate and innovate. Agility is key. Finland has a high degree of social equality, and in music this means that basically anyone can do anything. Creativity and curiosity are the wellspring of the vitality of contemporary Finnish folk music.

Kaisa Mäensivu studied double bass at the Sibelius Academy and continued her jazz studies at the Manhattan School of Music. She is now creating a career in various ensembles in the USA and Finland. How did she end up becoming a jazz professional? And how would she compare her experiences of the jazz scene in Helsinki and New York?

The organisations behind the Helsinki Music Centre’s Orchestra Academy are three of the biggest classical music institutions in the Finnish capital: the Sibelius Academy, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Helsinki Philharmonic. In practice, the Orchestra Academy is a consortium designed to bring together orchestral pros and students.

War, prison camps, famine and death are rather less than cheerful topics to feature at a music festival. Sibafest 2018, organised by the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, managed to find optimism within its chosen theme of #civilpeace – a message of peace, future, reconciliation and coexistence.

The year 2017 not only marks the centenary of Finland’s independence but is also an anniversary year for Finnish music education.

Voice and space are intertwining themes in the music of composer Paola Livorsi. In her most recent work, The End of No Ending, sound moves in space, human voices resonate with Persian percussion instruments, and two singers perform the secret poetry of Afghan women and improvise on a Macedonian folk song.

“If you look far enough back in any culture, music is born out of many different aspects and influences, including the physical environment that you live in. This is the key for me, finding your own points of connection with your culture, whatever that might be,” says widely travelled multi-instrumentalist Nathan Riki Thomson.

In the heart of folk music is an idea of equality: professionals and amateurs playing the same repertoire, each at their own skill level, as valued members of the community. There is a natural curiosity about different cultures and any form of exclusion is discouraged. However, gender equality is an issue that still seems to need some fine tuning. What is the status of female folk musicians in the Finland of 2016?

Boys are conspicuous by their absence in basic music education. This phenomenon is not uniquely Finnish; it has been a source of concern for music education scholars internationally for quite some time. While music playschools have an equal number of girls and boys, in instrumental studies the gender balance tilts alarmingly, fewer than one third of students being boys.

What does democratic education look like from the perspective of music? In October 2015, the ArtsEqual research initiative was launched to survey equality in various branches of the arts. At its centre is Resonaari, a music institute leading by example to show what potential musicianship may be found in the margins of society.

The Sibelius Academy, Finland’s only music university, has for the past two years been part of the University of the Arts trio, together with the Theatre Academy and the Academy of Fine Arts. What does the future sound like for the Sibelius Academy?

"Here in Finland there are places for innovative thinking, and it’s maybe not by accident that they are also multiculturally oriented. The music scene in Helsinki is changing,"writes composer Paola Livorsi in her column for FMQ.

"Laitinen flexes his vocals to varied roles, portraying the whole spectrum of emotions: humour, jealousy, love, sadness, smugness, weakness, cruelty and the feeling of abandonment. As the ballads open a window into humanity, you forget the theme of murder...

Between the mid 1970s and the early 1990s Professor Jorma Panula and his students made the Finnish training for conductors both widely known and highly acclaimed. But where did it all begin - and what has happened since?