 An important Composer Portrait Concert of young Finnish talent Sebastian Hilli (b. 1990) on August 21st at the Helsinki Music Centre is built around the three chamber pieces in his Paraphrase cycle, utilizing and overlapping elements of different musics, composers and performers such as John Coltrane, free jazz, acid house, Sibelius or Gesualdo.
Hilli’s works have in common the composer’s fascination with structure, dynamism and carefully crafted details. Throughout, his music is characterized by complex woven textures and nuanced sonorities, long-span processes and a flair for extra-musical topics. Fascinated by the intensity of music as the focal point of his musical thinking, his works always emerge from the question of how to achieve this in various ways. Hilli accomplishes this in both extremes – in energetic textures moving in fast pace and in quiet and concentrated moments. The wide range of characters in his works demonstrate the composer’s emotional and expressional versatility and speaks of his curiosity of always seeking for new ways of expression. All the compositions in the program have been finished during 2015–16. Welcome to this major event not to be missed!
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 PUBLIC PRIVACY
Monday February 19th at 7:00 PM, Camerata Hall, Helsinki Music Centre 7.00 PM – Pre-concert talk with Clara Iannotta 7.30 PM – Concert ca 8.30 PM – Post-concert talk with Lauri Supponen, Elias Girod, Linda Martikainen and Uusinta Ensemble Uusinta Ensemble will perform an exciting new program, designed by its Artistic Director Perttu Haapanen, presenting a selection of the newest and most engaging international contemporary music in the Klang concert series of the Helsinki Music Centre. One of the highlights of the concert will be the world premiere of a new collaborative piece Circulating Mouthpiece with music by Finnish young talent Lauri Supponen, commissioned by Uusinta Ensemble, and contemporary dance performed by Elias Girod (chor. Elias Girod and Linda Martikainen). Watch video interview with the artistic team commenting in Finnish on the first rehearsal of their new work. At our pre-concert talk at 7 PM at the Lower Foyer of the Helsinki Music Centre, internationally sought-after young composer Clara Iannotta will be interviewed by Perttu Haapanen. The bar will be open. At our post-concert talk at ca 8.30 PM at the Lower Foyer of the Helsinki Music Centre you are welcomed to meet composer Lauri Supponen, dancer-choreographer Elias Girod, choreographer Linda Martikainen as well as members of Uusinta Ensemble. The bar will be open. Program Elias Girod, Linda Martikainen & Lauri Supponen: Circulating Mouthpiece (2018) for piccolo, violin, viola, violoncello, double bass and dance (chor. Elias Girod and Linda Martikainen) World Premiere, Uusinta Ensemble’s commission Brigitta Muntendorf: Public Privacy #1 Flute Cover (2014) for flute, electronics and video Clara Iannotta: The people here go mad. They blame the wind. (2013) for clarinet, violoncello, piano and 12 music boxes Finnish Premiere Georg Friedrich Haas: String Quartet No. 6 (2010) Performers Uusinta Ensemble (Malla Vivolin, flute/piccolo, Angel Molinos, clarinet, Emil Holmström, piano, Maria Puusaari and Aleksi Kotila, violins, Max Savikangas, viola, Markus Hohti, violoncello and Adrian Rigopulos, double bass) Elias Girod, dancer Clara Iannotta, music boxes Sound system, electronics, video projection and stage lights designed and operated by Helsinki Music Centre’s audio and lighting technicians. This concert is kindly supported by Istituto Italiano di Cultura Helsinki (IIC Helsinki), The Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike) and The Finnish Music Foundation (MES) . Welcome!  Danish Composer Mette Nielsen is nominted for the Danish Carl Prize 2017, in the category Classical Composer of the Year – Small Ensemble, for her piece Odense Havn 1991/2016. Uusinta Ensemble commissioned the piece in 2016 within the Nordlyd project and gave the premiere of in Copenhagen at the Klang Festival 2016. Congratulations to Mette Nielsen for the nomination!
The Carl Prize 2017 winners will be announced on April 24th 2017.  The Furrer album by Uusinta Ensemble and Helsinki Chamber Choir (Toccata Classics 2016) awarded internationally.
The ensemble collaborated with the Helsinki Chamber Choir and its conductor Nils Schweckendiek on an album of Beat Furrer’s music last year. The album has received many awards, listings and acclaiming reviews worldwide. Awards and nominations:
Reviews: The Guardian 28.7.2016 “…a hugely attractive collection” 4/5 stars *** Gramophone November 2016 (Peter Quantrill) “Quiet poise and patience are required both by listeners and by performers, and supplied by the Uusinta Ensemble.” *** Fanfare Magazine Issue 40:3 Jan/Feb 2017 (Maria Nockin) “Toccata’s pristine sound gives the listener the feeling of having a fifth row center seat in an intimate concert hall…I enjoyed this foray into the avant-garde and think many lovers of new vocal music will want to hear it.” *** Frankfurter Allgemeine 13.2.2017 “The brilliant interpretation by the Uusinta soloists makes the music even more drunk and the listener bewitched” *** Yle Classical Music, New Records 14.10.2016 (Ville Komppa) “These two ensembles that have broadly taken part in the Finnish music exports lately, the Helsinki Chamber Choir and Uusinta Ensemble, take a very meaningful step with the recording of Beat Furrer’s works for choir and ensemble – and they do it with extraordinary success.” *** Huvudstadsbladet 5.10.2016 (Folke Forsman) “The Enigma suite is complemented by voices – still, written originally for an instrumental ensemble and later expanded with the choir and a text from Virgil’s Georgica. Furrer treats the instruments as ruthlessly as he treats the human voice, with the timbre as means and ends – different ponticelli (bowing close to the bridge) for the strings and multiphones for the woodwinds.”  Uusinta Ensemble has in 5th of February 2017 appointed composer Perttu Haapanen (s. 1972) as its Artistic Director on a five-year contract.
Perttu Haapanen, who graduated as M.Mus. from the Sibelius Academy in 2002, is a prominent composer, whose works have been performed widely in Europe, Asia and USA (e.g. Musica Nova Helsinki, Wien Modern, Ultraschall, Maerzmusik, Warsaw Autumn, Huddersfield Contemporary Music, Baltic Sea, Nordic Music Days, ISCM, Music of Today, Great Performer’s, Ars Nova Seoul, Time of Music, Musica Novo Järvenpää and Sibelius Academy). His orchestral compositions have been nominated twice for one of the biggest art prizes in the Nordic countries, the Teosto Price of the Finnish Composers’ Copyright Society (Ladies Room in 2008 and Compulsion Island in 2015). In addition to his work as a composer, Perttu Haapanen was appointed as the Artistic Director of the Viitasaari Time of Music festival Finland in 2009–2013. He has also held positions in various important cultural organisations in Finland, e.g. in 2013–16 in the National Council of Music. Perttu Haapanen outlines the artistic profile of Uusinta Ensemble: “It’s a true pleasure for me to start working with Uusinta Ensemble, which with its previous Artistic Director, composer Ville Raasakka has developed into an international level contemporary music ensemble. In Uusinta Ensemble, the uncompromising musical know-how is combined with open-minded search for the artistic novelty. Young composers will be in the focus, not forgetting the landmarks of contemporary music, with which the ensemble can develop itself even further. I believe that by investing in the special quality Uusinta Ensemble holds and focusing its artistic profile boldly and clearly, we will in the long term be able to reach true goals both in the artistic and social sense.” In the picture: Composer Sebastian Hilli (Photo Credit: Otto Virtanen)  Uusinta Ensemble will present a completely new concert program including a World Premiere and two Finnish Premieres on October 9th 2016 at 3:00 PM at the New Music October in Oulu Festival, Oulu Music Centre, Tulindberg Hall, Leevi Madetojan katu 1-3, Oulu, Finland.
The highlights of the concert will be the World Premiere of Paraphrase II (Giant Steps and Eden Acid) by Finnish young talent composer Sebastian Hilli, as well as Finnish Premieres of Elena Mendoza’s Nebelsplitter and Johan Svensson’s Diamond Dust. Also, in conjunction with the performance of Into the Silence of the Woods by Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen, a media work entitled Silence of the Woods by director Karoliina Niemelä and Korpikomppania Dance Company will be shown. Welcome!  Uusinta Ensemble, conducted by József Hárs, will perform at the Klang Festival, the Copenhagen based avantgarde music festival with a completely new program. Five Nordic composers will be presented and three new pieces premiered, which Uusinta Ensemble has co-commissioned within the Nordlyd project, organised by the Inter Arts Center in Malmö and supported by Kulturkontakt Nord and Nordisk Kulturfond. At this concert Uusinta will premiere works by Mette Nielsen (DK), Hafdis Bjarnadottir (IS) and Ida Lundén (SE) and also perform works by Lars Petter Hagen (NO) and Ville Raasakka (FI).
 The new album (CD / Digital Download) by Uusinta Ensemble with Helsinki Chamber Choir and conductor Nils Schweckendiek was released in August 2016 by Toccata Classics.
The album presents music of Beat Furrer, Swiss-born (in 1954) and Vienna-based, who has long attracted attention for its subtle exploration of the possibilities of the human voice. This first recording of his enigmas I-VI for mixed choir a cappella (2006-2013), a cycle of six a cappella settings of Leonardo (he has since added a seventh) demonstrates its striking emotional range, from rich, almost Romantic tonal warmth to dramatic avant-garde expressionism. It is complemented by two works, voices — still for mixed choir and ensemble (2001) and …cold and calm and moving for flute, harp, violin, viola and cello (1992) which underline Furrer’s fondness for exploring sonority, timbre and texture. Uusinta Ensemble Helsinki Chamber Choir Nils Schweckendiek, conductor  June in Buffalo is a festival and conference dedicated to composers, presented by the Department of Music and The Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music at the University at Buffalo. Uusinta Ensemble will be appearing as a resident ensemble, conducted by József Hárs and will be playing in two concerts. The first one includes works studying the essence of sound and the nature of perception (Levine – Ung – Eimermacher – Fineberg), the other one consists of contemporary works by Igor Coelho A.S. Marques, Young Woo Yoo, Colin Tucker, Ryan Suleiman and Peter Kramer. The concerts will be conducted by Jozsef Hars and performed by seven musicians from the ensemble.
June in Buffalo offers an intensive schedule of seminars, lectures, workshops, professional presentations, participant forums and open rehearsals as well as afternoon and evening concerts open to the general public and critics. Each of the invited composers will have one of his/her pieces performed during the festival. Evening performances feature faculty composers, resident ensembles and soloists renowned internationally as interpreters of contemporary music. A PIECE CO-COMMISSIONED BY UUSINTA ENSEMBLE AWARDED AT THE INTERNATIONAL ROSTRUM OF COMPOSERS5/15/2016  Oscar Bianchi’s (Switzerland, b. 1975) Partendo (2015) for countertenor and ensemble, co-commissioned by Uusinta Ensemble, won the general category of the 63rd International Rostrum of Composers held in Wroclaw, from May 16 to 21, 2016.
Oscar Bianchi writes on his Rostrum winner piece: Vitality, pulsing rhythms, and virtuosity are the hallmarks of the music created by Bianchi, who reveals a sensible interest in new phrasings and new ornamentations, something to be expected from someone whose ears are finely attuned to the music from all corners of the globe. The central topic of this work is ‘leaving’ (‘partendo’ is the Italian word for ‘leaving’ ). How do we leave existing physical and intellectual places, and relatedly how can we part formerly embraced personal and historical identities? How do we select what we want, need, and wish to bring along with us and what we should, must leave behind us? What is relevant for our future as individuals and as collective groups to be brought, preserved and defended? What is actually the scale of values that we are unknowingly developing thanks to the act of ‘leaving’, ‘parting ways’? |
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Jarkko Hartikainen, Artistic Director
Artistic Matters, Engagements, Cooperations +358 40 592 4658 jarkko at uusintaensemble.fi Anna Karvonen, Executive Director Concert Production +358 50 570 7725 producer at uusintaensemble.fi |
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