When Helga Wanted to Hug Joona

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It's this time of the year again: when I wish I were living in Finland, and being 

able to book tickets to the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival 

(http://www.kuhmofestival.fi/inenglish.htm). We were lucky to spend two glorious 

weeks there at the 2010 festival, attending to some fifty memorable concerts. 

2012 program has just been released (and, thus this post):

Kuhmo Chamber Music this year presents not

only favourite items from the chamber-music

repertoire but also large-scale works: two

symphonies, two operas, Mozart’s Requiem

and Haydn’s Creation. There are 70 concerts

in all, given by such stars as the Kronos Quartet,

the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir and Soile Isokoski.

The two-week festival will run from July 15 to July 28. 

The programme this year is so wide and varied

that Artistic Director Vladimir Mendelssohn refuses

to single out any particular theme. “It could be God,

visions, beauty, the limitations of man and

the limitlessness of the universe,” he says.

“Or it could be myths, memories, nature, wisdom

or courage.” 

Some 170 top artists from Finland and abroad will

be appearing at Kuhmo this summer. Among

the familiar faces are pianists Paavali Jumppanen,

Valeria Resjan, Roope Gröndahl and Henri Sigfridsson,

violinists Hagai Shaham, Ilja Gringolts and Elina Vähälä,

cellists David Cohen, Martti Rousi and Marko Ylönen,

flutist Janne Thomsen and clarinettist Michel Lethiec.

One of the most highly-acclaimed musicians of her

generation, Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang, will be

making her Kuhmo debut. 

Along with ten others, the list of international singers

includes Soile Isokoski, Martin Alvarado, Jaakko

Kortekangas and Mari Palo. The Kuhmo ensembles are

the Kronos, Danel, Enesco and Meta4 Quartets and

the Storioni Trio. This summer, visitors to Kuhmo can

also hear a host of rising stars chosen on the basis

of auditions.

And here was my diary of the 2010 festival:

http://theridoureport.blogspot.com/2010/10/days-all-kuhmo-international-chamber.html

Elina Vähälä

My notes in 2010...
(Joona being Joona Pulkkinen, a young Finnish Cellist)

Kuhmo Arts Centre at night.

Driving back to our accommodation, a log cabin by the lake Saunalahti.

Kronos Quartet, just one of some 170 performers.