The theme is published!
This year’s theme of the Time of Music festival, Time Capsules, asks its listeners in the spirit of Andy Warhol; what we would pack in a box from our own time to be preserved for future generations. How do different social challenges shape our future? How do the authors, performers and audience think in this time?
We live in the middle of a polycrisis, where artificial intelligence, climate change and wars have an impact to a change in worlds of values and ways of working. Being in the middle of a storm is often challenging to understand what is actually happening. However, we know that social transitions have always also been interesting times in the field of art.
The festival’s concerts, workshops and discussions form Warhol-like time capsules to send to the future: they create a picture of our concerns and wishes in this time.
The opening concert features the soundscape of animal movements
The full 2025 program will be released in May, and tickets will go on sale at the same time. However, here is a sneak peek at the opening concert and some previews of the other concerts:
The festival will open with a concert exploring the musical traces of the animal world. New York-based piano and percussion quartet Yarn/Wire, consisting of top musicians, will perform Lisa Streich’s composition Orchestra of Black Butterflies. In this work, two pianos tuned to slightly different pitches create an exceptional and dialectical soundscape that is built around percussive structures.
The opening concert will feature also Danish-Norwegian composer Simon Løffler’s Animalia Cycle, a ten-part series exploring the music produced by the movements of animal figures. What kind of sound do animal movements or, for example, bird wings produce as musical extensions of the human body? The series will be presented by Løffler himself and his long-time collaborators Jennifer Torrence, Ane Marthe Sørlien Holen and Inga Margrete Aas – all key influences on the Nordic contemporary music scene.
At the 2025 festival, you will hear a diverse range of the latest music. Top international names will perform, such as the aforementioned Yarn/Wire quartet from New York, the Finnish band Saxtronauts and the Polish band Kompopolex.
The present moment and the future of contemporary music and the world are created during the festival week in workshops and in discussions in Finnish and English together with the Contemporary Music Institute of the City of Viitasaari.
Places available on music courses!
As in previous years, the course activities will continue active: this summer, during Time of Music, you can study composition, field recording techniques and community creation processes under the guidance of experienced teachers. The composition course is already full, but applications are still being accepted for the field recording and community creation courses. More information and registration forms here.
Stay tuned for more info soon! Welcome to Time of Music 2025!