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No.1, February 2006 The magazine of NOMUS, the NORDIC MUSIC COMMITTEE 1 No. 1, February 2006 Nomus, the Nordic n a cold winter evening in 1999 you collaborations and trips into the region. The Music Committee, is the Ocould see a queue standing outside the participants will draft working proposals, subcommittee of the The magazine of NOMUS, Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. People were ‘dream proposals’ and just plain fantastic Nordic Council of Ministers the NORDIC MUSIC COMMITTEE lining up to get into the premiere of Thomas proposals for museums of everyday life in the for musical matters, and Anders Beyer one of several Nordic Adès’ opera Powder Her Face. But it wasn’t Barents region. The Symposium follows the subcommittees, institutions Editor only the opera that was the object of so Laboratory. An additional 26 artists, experts and steering groups. much attention, it was also a young Finnish and international keynote speakers will then 4 Nordic Women Composers woman’s debut as a conductor that got people meet in Kirkenes to broaden the discussion of Nomus consists of one by Guy Rickards to brave the bitter cold. The production was cultural encounters across traditional national delegate from each of the five Nordic countries and a success and was the starting-shot for a and artistic boundaries. observers from the three New Music from Finland and Sweden, part 1 meteoric career for the conductor Susanna areas with home rule. Its Mälkki. She has just been appointed Music Nordic Sounds was also visible at the Nordic members are nominated by Director of Ensemble Intercontemporain Jazz Symposium in New York in January. each country’s Ministry of 12 Connection Barents in Paris. When she takes up her post in The last issue of the magazine presented the Cultural Affairs. by Mette Bender the autumn of 2006, this versatile young symposium and the Nordic participants. Read The Committee meets A Trans-Artistic Expedition under the Pole star conductor with an already-outstanding career more about the event in this issue. three or four times a will meet one of the most highly esteemed year and its activities are contemporary orchestras in Europe. We paint In April Gothenburg will be invaded by administered through a 16 Susan Mälkki – Conductor in Paris a portrait of the artist in this issue. some of the best percussionists in the Nordic General Secretariat, located in Stockholm. by Anu Konttinen countries for a whole festival in the Swedish Susanna Mälkki isn’t the only woman in this city. The ambition of the festival is to present Nomus is financed by an Finnish conductor with a meteoric career issue, which presents important living women a selection of the exciting percussion music annual grant in the budget composers from the Nordic countries. One of from the North played by musicians from of the Nordic Council of them, the Swede Karin Rehnqvist is the key all over the region. Check off your calendar Ministers. 19 Nordic Jazz in New York name at a festival in Stockholm in April and is if you’re interested in this area – read more For further information on by Anders Beyer singled out for an individual portrait. inside the magazine. And keep up with Nomus, its activities and developments on the CD front. As usual we publications, please contact: 33rd Annual IAJE International Conference in NY Several of the arts committees under the give you a guided tour of the new releases. Nomus’ general secretariat, auspices of the Nordic Council of Ministers Nybrokajen 11, SE-111 48 Stockholm, Sweden, have joined forces in an ambitious project 2006 is the year for big structural changes 20 A Composer of Fiery Inspiration phone +46-8-407 17 20, by Svend Brown entitled Connection Barents, which is in the cultural field in the Nordic Council fax +46-8-407 17 21, taking place in June and July. The project of Ministers. In the course of the autumn it E-mail: [email protected] Swedish composer Karen Rehnqvist consists of two parts: the Laboratory and will become clear which areas will continue Nomus members the Symposium. In the Laboratory 22 local in the new system. The Secretary-General 2005-2006: and visiting artists and experts will be of NOMUS, Bo Rydberg, wants to keep our Denmark Delegate: 22 Booommm! brought together in Kirkenes for a ten-day readers informed of developments. In this issue Irene Becker by Martin Steisner ‘research laboratory’ where they will develop he offers an appraisal of the present situation Deputy: Inger Allan a number of collaborative strategies in and hopes that the central functions of Faroes Observer: Nordic percussion festival in Sweden presentations, discussions, provocations, NOMUS will also be preserved after 2006. Andrea Heindriksdóttir Greenland Observer: Juaaka Lyberth 24 NOMUS update Finland Delegate: by Bo Rydberg Alarik Repo Deputy: Leena Hirvonen Åland Observer: Structural changes in the field of culture Kjell Frisk Iceland Delegate: 26 New Releases – CD Reviews by Guy Rickards Þorgerður Ingólfsdóttir Nordic Sounds Please contact Nordic Sounds Editor: Anders Beyer Editorial Committee: Deputy: 14 Christian Winthers Vej if you change your address. Selma Guðmundsdóttir DK-1860 Frederiksberg C Translator: James Manley Odd Sneeggen (S) Norway Delegate: Phone: +45 3324 4248 Articles in Nordic Sounds do Publisher (with legal responsibility Tomas Lauvland Pettersen (N) Bjørn Kruse Fax: +45 3324 4246 not necessarily express the views in accordance with Danish press Árni Heimir Ingólfsson (ICL) (chairman) E-mail: [email protected] of Nomus. regulations): Bo Rydberg, Nomus Aarne Toivonen (FIN) Deputy: Gro Sandvik www.nordicsounds.org Graphic design: elevator-design.dk Bodil Høgh (DK) Sweden Delegate: Nordic Sounds is published by The editor accepts no responsibility Kerstin Nerbe Nomus (Nordic Music Committee) for unsolicited manuscripts, Printed in Denmark 2006 by Nordic Sounds No.1/ 2006 (deputy chairman) 2 four times a year. photographs, and drawings. Centertryk A/S ISSN 0108-2914 Deputy: Lars Nilsson Cover Illustration: Denise Burt 3 odern-day Clara Schumanns no Both Pauliina Isomäki (b 1964) and jazz pianist NORDIC longer give up composing to tend to Anna-Mari Kähärä (b 1963) have followed different greater husbands and have babies. paths. Kähärä founded the vocal ensemble How Many The Irish-born Elizabeth Maconchy Sisters and has worked with Karl Jenkins and Adiemus, was one of many to mix careers and the crossover ensemble Zetaboo and violinist Pekka Women Composers: Mher daughter Nicola Lefanu is also a highly respected Kuusisto. Jazz is her main interest, for which she has composer. In fact, hundreds of women are success- won high recognition (she won the Yrjö prize of the fully writing music all over the world. In Finland, the Finnish Jazz Federation and the Suomi Art Prize in dominant figure is Kaija Saariaho (b 1951) who has 2002). Her debut album, Anna-Mari Kähärä Orchestra, – alone of any of the composers I will be discussing was released by EMI Finland in 2005. Although – achieved major international standing. As she has Isomäki studied in the USA (Catawba College) and deservedly received much attention, I will concentrate piano at Åbo Academy, she later took up the recorder Part 1, Finland on others less well-known, omitting expatriates like as performer and teacher. She has composed music in Paolo Livorsi and Victoria Borisova-Ollas. many genres, from stage works to recorder solos. and Sweden If Saariaho is undeniably one of the most respected RIIKKA TALVITIE (b. 1970) has found success as living composers of either sex, she was not the first oboist and composer, not unlike Melinda Maxwell in female one to have emerged in Finland. HELVI Britain. As oboist, she has premiered many new works LEIVISKÄ (1902-82) – whose music is well overdue and helped found the Uusinta Chamber Orchestra. Like for revival – emerged in the 1920s, primarily with Saariaho she studied with Heininen at the Sibelius chamber and instrumental works, not least her Piano Academy and later with Leroux at IRCAM, and Grisey Concerto, about which one critic wrote that her “seri- at the Paris Conservatoire. The stereotype of a ous artistic approach, perhaps closest akin to that of Brahms and Bruckner, is here manifest in an already She has written much for the voice, with solo and part composer struggling with notably mature and technically lucid idiom.” songs, motets and a small comic opera, Maestro vie. In 2001 her choral works Kuvan kuva (The image of his art in a drafty garret, The appearance of her Violin Sonata in 1945 cemented an image) and Ihmisen määvä (Measure for Man) took her reputation further, but it was with her three sym- 1st and 3rd Prizes at Tampere’s Vocal Music Festival. as clichéd as the notion that phonies and the single-span Sinfonia brevis that she Tulen värinä (The Flicker of Fire, 2002) is also fine, a emerged as a composer of real stature. These charted serious-minded, compact cantata for tenor, 3 soli and all Vikings wore helmets a move from late Romanticism through Neoclassicism male choir setting Mikko Rimminen’s apocalyptic with horns, remains to a decidedly modern, but tonal language in her later poem. The music shows her flair for texture and co- works. The splendid Third Symphony, perhaps her lour, not least in handling the text’s word games and surprisingly prevalent. masterpiece, deserves to be far more widely known. wry humour. For her own instrument she has written That none are available on disc, when so much medioc- the vivacious 5-minute Perspectives and a concerto rity is, is little short of scandalous. Tululuikku – one of her largest works. Microintervals and multiphonics feature as does, in the concerto, the luminous orchestration evident in much of her work.