FMQ - Special feature Articles

The complex and fascinating world of vocals in early music: A discussion between Kari Turunen and Tuuli Lindeberg

What can early music have to offer to the culture of music performances at large that the latter does not already have? Quite a lot, as Vancouver-based choir conductor Kari Turunen and versatile soprano Tuuli Lindeberg discover when talking about performing early music, its special nature and its interfaces.

Kari Turunen

October 4, 2024

Columns

On my music and beyond: Escaping the romantic orchestra’s grasp

What happens when a composer turns away from the lush, uniform sound of the Romantic orchestra? In this column by composer Olli Virtaperko, the journey from early music instruments to contemporary orchestral challenges reveals a fresh perspective on navigating between different musical ideals.

Olli Virtaperko

September 27, 2024

Features

Krishna Nagaraja: Finding a home amid polskas, baroque and metal rhythms

An Indian-Italian composer studying Norwegian fiddling in Helsinki? It all comes naturally for Krishna Nagaraja, who traces parallels between far-flung genres, from Ars Subtilior and South Indian Konnakol to Irish folk and progressive metal.

Wif Stenger

September 20, 2024

Columns

The Special Feature 2/2024 Editorial: The art of spontaneity: Exploring the boundaries of improvisation

This special issue of FMQ highlights improvisation. We delve into the experiences of musicians who balance spontaneity and structure, revealing how improvisation shapes their creative processes and performances in kaleidoscopic ways.

Lasse Lehtonen

June 27, 2024

Reviews

Improvisation on three recent releases: From Skeletons to Lightyears Ahead

How does improvisation manifest on Finnish records today – in jazz and beyond? In this review article, Matti Nives, the founder and creative director of the Helsinki-based label, festival and magazine We Jazz, takes an in-depth look at three recent releases.

Matti Nives

June 27, 2024

Columns

Vocal painting – how to make a choir improvise

When choral conductor Ida Olsonen does vocal painting with the Musta lammas choir (whose name translates as ‘black sheep’), no one knows what the performance will be like. In this column, Olsonen describes how an improvised choral performance unfolds – and how it is even possible to conduct choral improvisation in the first place.

Ida Olsonen

June 27, 2024

Features

"Good improvisation is...” – A conversation about improvisation

Folk musician, multidisciplinary improviser and educator Outi Pulkkinen and pianist-composer Kari Ikonen discuss improvisation, its limits and its potential. Both base their work on improvisation, and here they share their thoughts on what good improvisation is, why it is an attractive concept and how you can dispel your fear of failure with it.

Loviisa Pihlakoski

June 27, 2024

Features

From the archives: The Dream Team of Finnish Improvisation

The toughest yet most rewarding of all forms of musical expression, improvisation, has always thrived in Finland. Who knows, maybe the rigours of the freezing dark winter and the joys of the warm midnight sun form mental images that are easily translated into music. As far as the brave musicians adept in this discipline go, this article seeks to separate the wheat from the chaff. This article was originally published in FMQ 1/2003.

Petri Silas

June 27, 2024

Columns

Improvisation and intuition with Katarina Barruk

Katarina Barruk is an Ume Sámi singer and songwriter from the Swedish side of the Sámi region, Sábmie. Barruk sings in her native language, Ume Sámi, which is in the UNESCO’s red list of critically endangered languages with just an estimated 100 speakers. Making her language heard across borders, Barruk’s live performances have improvised elements, and improvisation is an important force in her music that mixes traditional joik with pop. In this interview with FMQ, Barruk talks about her relationship with improvisation.

Katarina Barruk

June 20, 2024

Features

“Improvisation is an act of rebellion”

Classical musicians are rediscovering the long-lost art of improvisation, which has been kept alive in jazz and folk. How does improvisation affect the brains of performers and listeners – and what does it require of each?

Wif Stenger

June 14, 2024

Features

Free steering in coded chaos

Libero Mureddu, who is completing a doctorate at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, creates sonic frameworks that blend algorithmic unexpectancies with collective improvisation. His work is at once art and research, as it focuses on observing the intuitive actions of improvising musicians. What is required for these intuitive actions to blossom in a performance, and how can technology and human musicianship communicate with each other?

Santeri Kaipiainen

June 7, 2024

Features

The Special Feature 1/2024 Editorial: Crossing boundaries with children’s music

"This special issue of FMQ allows the vibrancy and joy of children’s music to shine through verbally, visually, and aurally," writes Lasse Lehtonen.

Lasse Lehtonen

March 28, 2024

Features

Experiencing inclusion and imagining futures in and through music education

Many of us recognise the experience of music opening completely new worlds, generating feelings and imagining beyond the everyday. These experiences may be our companions throughout life, but for children, this playful approach to the world and its wonders is fundamental. Unfortunately, the gate to musical worlds may not always be open. This article explores the meanings and relevance of music-related activities in our lives, beginning in early childhood. How can we open up these activities and experiences to everyone, preferably from an early age?

Laura Huhtinen-Hildén

March 28, 2024

Features

From the archives: Music for children in Finland – A short history

Children’s music boasts a surprisingly extensive history in Finland. In this article, originally published in FMQ in 2011, Anu Ahola provides an overview of the various phases of children’s music in Finland.

March 28, 2024

Columns

The Special Feature 4/2023 Editorial: What should we discuss when addressing artificial intelligence?

"We should be talking much more about how AI affects our capabilities in critical thinking (or thinking in general) and how we are able to assess whether the information surrounding us is true or false", writes Lasse Lehtonen.

Lasse Lehtonen

December 22, 2023

Features

AI: Disrupting bonds between music, artists and audiences

How is AI impacting the music industry? Three experts from Finland tell us it will shake our fundamental assumptions about artists’ identities, their unique creative visions and relationships with listeners.

Wif Stenger

December 22, 2023

Features

Artificial intelligence in art is both assistive and destructive: A discussion about music and literature

Ano Sirppiniemi (Senior Advisor, Technology and Foresight at the Finnish performance rights organization Teosto) and Ville Hytönen (Chair of the Union of Finnish Writers) met and talked about the opportunities offered and threats posed by artificial intelligence in the spheres of music and literature. Sirppiniemi is involved in AI adoption at Teosto, as well as evaluating the impact of AI on music authors, publishers, and the music industry as a whole, and Hytönen has been actively involved with a similar evaluation in the field of literature. What common topics and concerns do these two fields share, and in what ways do they diverge?

Ano Sirppiniemi

December 22, 2023

Features

Playlist: Discussing AI-generated classical music with ChatGPT

Have you ever listened to music created by artificial intelligence? Here are some recommendations to explore. These compositions raise intriguing questions: what defines the essence of live performance, contributing to a more human outcome? How might a non-human performance unfold? Will our perception of the music change when we’re aware it was composed by an AI rather than a human? How can we know that these works have been generated by an AI without human intervention?

Lasse Lehtonen

December 22, 2023

Features

Challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence in music

The development of artificial intelligence has seen the introduction of several different paradigms, the latest often superseding its predecessor. In the current millennium, the improvements in the accuracy of artificial intelligence applications have rendered them usable for a range of tasks that were previously considered challenging for a machine, such as image and speech recognition.

Otso Björklund

December 15, 2023

Columns

The Special Feature 3/2023 Editorial: Musical mappings of grief

It may be clichéd to note that music is an exceptionally powerful medium for channeling strong emotions, but this cliché certainly underscores its validity when one encounters a profoundly human emotion: grief. The expression – or experience – of grief through music can follow highly normative and ritualized paths, especially during occasions like funerals. However, it can also take freer forms, seeking to push the boundaries and norms that society typically imposes on how we should experience grief.

Lasse Lehtonen

September 29, 2023

Columns

Between different worlds – Locating “Finland” in Final Fantasy V Dear Friends

I still vividly remember how surprised I was when, more than 20 years ago, I first popped Final Fantasy V Dear Friends (1993) into my CD player. I was expecting to hear the energetic main theme with its iconic harp, strings and trumpet. Instead, the CD started with joik from Lapland – followed by a piece that begins with a kantele solo! Indeed, Dear Friends is one of the few game music albums to feature kantele and joik. But is there anything ‘Finnish’ about the album?

Lasse Lehtonen

June 15, 2023

Features

Playlist: Video game music from Finland

This playlist highlights the work of composers, arrangers and performers of video game music in Finland. Our list boasts a selection of addictive sounds from epic orchestral textures to quirky technopop and tunes that make you want to dance. How about next trying them as part of a gaming experience?

FMQ

June 15, 2023

Features

Let’s play GAMEM – Research project explores the significance of game music in everyday life

Game Music Everyday Memories, or GAMEM, is a research project undertaken at the University of Jyväskylä in 2020-2022. Funded by the Kone Foundation, the project examined people’s fondest and most lasting game music memories from a range of different perspectives, and the effect of these memories in their everyday life. The research results indicate that the impact of game music is significant.

Elina Lajunen

June 15, 2023

Features

Game Music Collective: Redefining concert culture

September 2017, Finlandia Hall. One of Finland’s most iconic concert halls hosts an orchestral concert with a full audience that is decidedly younger than average. That’s thanks to the programme, which features music composed for video games. As thousands rise for a standing ovation for the Game Music Collective, the atmosphere is electric: something new has been born.

Janne Sala

June 15, 2023

Columns

Editorial: Video game music – all around us yet often ignored

"Video game music has become increasingly prominent in musical life in Finland. This special issue introduces some of the fascinating and diverse aspects of game music in the country," writes Lasse Lehtonen.

Lasse Lehtonen

June 15, 2023

Features

Helsinki jazz-folk quartet Barlast tours Japan: Chopstick guitar, taco rice and attentive audiences

Helsinki-based quartet Barlast, formed in 2016, has won over audiences with their expressive blend of Nordic folk and jazz, where free improvisation plays a significant role. After performing in Estonia, Norway and Hungary, they recently embarked on their debut tour of Japan. Due to the pandemic, the tour had to be rescheduled and delayed for several years. This photo feature highlights their fourth concert in Tokyo, part of a seven-city tour in March 2023.

Julius Johansson

March 30, 2023

Columns

The Special Feature 1/2023 Editorial: Celebrating musical connections between peoples

"While all the articles address different topics, it becomes apparent that, regardless of genre or generation, the strength of Finnish-Japanese musical exchange ultimately boils down to avid enthusiasm and fruitful collaborations. These collaborations have resulted in long-lasting friendships – both between two countries and between people", writes editor-in-chief Lasse Lehtonen.

Lasse Lehtonen

March 30, 2023

Features

“Melody and melancholy in suitable doses” – Finnish heavyrock is “BIG IN JAPAN“

From the Archives: Hanoi Rocks, Children Of Bodom, Sonata Arctica, Stratovarius, Negative, Amorphis, The 69 Eyes, Twilightning, Dreamtale... Finnish heavy rock and heavy metal acts have for years enjoyed great success in the Japanese market. But why Finnish music in particular, and why Japan of all places? What sort of figures and what sort of market are we talking about here? This article is originally published in 2004.

Timo Isoaho

March 30, 2023

Columns

On the current demand for Sibelius and Finnish music in Japan

“It is easy for the Japanese audience to sympathise with the musical characteristics of Finnish works,” writes Yuri Nitta, conductor and chair of the Sibelius Society of Japan.

Yuri Nitta

March 30, 2023

Features

Eva Alkula and Tomoya Nakai – A genuine interest in someone else’s culture is the best starting point for collaboration

As the saying goes, “sometimes you have to travel far to see what is near”. Finnish kantele artist Eva Alkula and Japanese koto artist Tomoya Nakai have performed as a duo for nearly two decades. Their collaboration crystallises each artist’s identity as a musician and enables the birth of something new. The unique union of the distinct timbres of the kantele and the koto is “a match made in heaven”, even if the physical distance between Tokyo and Tampere remains 7,843 kilometres.

Elina Roms

March 30, 2023

Features

Izumi Tateno and Seppo Kimanen – dialogue between a Japanese pianist and a Finnish cellist

“This was a pianist of a calibre that I had not yet encountered in Finland,” recalls Seppo Kimanen – cellist, non-fiction author and founder of the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival – thinking back to his first meeting with pianist Izumi Tateno, who divides his time between Japan and Finland.

Seppo Kimanen

March 30, 2023

Features

Composer Toshi Ichiyanagi (1933–2022): “Being in Finland calms my mind”

Toshi Ichiyanagi, who passed away in October 2022, was one of the most influential and internationally acclaimed Japanese composers of contemporary music. Possibly somewhat less known is that he also had a strong connection to Finland. As the founder and chair of the Japan Finland Contemporary Music Society, Ichiyanagi became a focal figure in fostering musical exchange and collaboration between the two countries. In this interview, conducted in Tokyo in 2018, Ichiyanagi talks about the contemporary music scene in Japan, the importance of cross-cultural collaboration – and his appreciation of Finnish cultural life.

Lasse Lehtonen

March 29, 2023

Features

Pianist Kirill Kozlovski and steeplechaser Topi Raitanen – a conversation about competing

Music and sport are, one might imagine, completely separate worlds – but there are surprisingly many similarities between the work of a musician and of an athlete. One of these is the importance of competitions in their careers. Pianist Kirill Kozlovski and steeplechaser Topi Raitanen sat down to talk about the commonalities and differences of music and sports.

Loviisa Pihlakoski

December 28, 2022

Columns

The Special Feature 4/2022 Editorial: Musicianship and competing – eternally inseparable?

"For better or worse, the occupation of a musician is largely defined by competing," writes Lasse Lehtonen.

Lasse Lehtonen

December 26, 2022

Features

Kaija Saariaho, Mater

“With the opening sonority of each of her works, Kaija establishes a vibration that resonates deep inside the listener’s body along with a spectrum of overtones that grow out of that original sonority but that also foreshadow the complex contradictions that compel us to identify with and follow the web she weaves”, writes Susan McClary in her essay about Kaija Saariaho’s work.

Susan McClary

October 27, 2022

Columns

The Special Feature 3/2022 Editorial: On musical metaphors and human encounters

"All pieces in this Special Feature share one theme: the significance of encounters," writes Lasse Lehtonen.

Lasse Lehtonen

October 27, 2022

Features

The quest for identity – Kaija Saariaho spends a year in Finland

Kaija Saariaho, who settled in France in the early 1980s, spent the 1997- 98 academic year as visiting composition professor at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. The FMQ asked her how she felt at the end of her stay.

Anni Heino

January 9, 1998