Tampere Biennale 9-13 April 2014. Welcomming words by the Artistic Director Olli Virtaperko

This April, Tampere will once again showcase the newest and most intriguing things in Finnish contemporary classical music. This year, the five-day festival is focusing on works that combine music with visual elements. There will be multimedia works with sound and image, a monologue opera, and film screenings with live music – both improvised and specifically composed.

Our foreign guest is the Kairos Quartet from Berlin. They will be performing a sort of anti-statement of the festival theme: „In iij. Noct.”, the Third String Quartet of G.F. Haas, which is performed in complete darkness. Our Finnish guest group is Uusinta Ensemble, whose three concert programmes will include the premiere of Kumahdukset [Booms], commissioned by the Tampere Biennale from Antonin Servière. The festival has also commissioned re, a guitar duo by Sami Klemola, which will be premiered by Ismo Eskelinen and Jarmo Julkunen at the opening concert.

The concert of the Tampere Philharmonic on Friday 11 April will feature documentary films with music illustrating the disappearance of a traditional industrial environment in two cities in two different decades. Super M – konsertto murhaajalle [Super M – concerto for a murderer], depicting the demolition of the historical industrial district in the heart of Tampere, was directed by Arvo Ahlroos for Finnish TV2 in 1982. The score was written by Usko Meriläinen. This film is paired with the visually stunning short documentary Hanasaari A, depicting the demolition of a coal-fired power plant in Helsinki in the 2000s, created by Hannes Vartiainen and Pekka Veikkolainen in 2009. A new soundtrack has been written for the film by Perttu Haapanen. Both scores will be performed live by the Tampere Philharmonic, conducted by Anna-Maria Helsing.

The collaboration of the Tampere Biennale with the Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation that began in 2012 continues with two new video works. Mielen tasapainolajit [Mental Balance Variants] by Pirjetta Brander is set to a male voice choir work by Maija Hynninen, and Conter fleurette by Elina Brotherus is set to a trio by Harri Vuori. Both video works will be premiered at the opening of the Tampere Biennale at Galleria Himmelblau.

Alongside the ‘music and image’ theme there will be dialogue between music and science at two lecture-concerts and a seminar. Professor of Space Astronomy Esko Valtaoja and organist Susanne Kujala will be talking about the fascinating intertwined relationships of music, mathematics and astronomy, while Professor of Finno-Ugric Languages Janne Saarikivi and the Uusinta Ensemble will explore points of contact between music and language.

Click here for the full program of Tampere Biennale.