Tickets for the Viitasaari Time of Music festival, celebrating its 40th anniversary, are now on sale. In addition to individual tickets, there are low-cost day tickets and a festival pass for all 15 concerts at the festival on sale. Tickets can be found in Lippu.fi’s online store. In addition to paid concerts, the festival also has a large free program including concerts, two exhibitions, seminars, and discussions.
Artist Claudia Molitor’s diverse installation Listen to my World deals with community and the stories of people around the world. Pauliina Näsänen, a folk musician from Viitasaari, has taken part in the work from Finland. Listen to my World transforms the long-empty store space at Viitasaari bus station into a magical weave of sound and visual elements, where you can stop by to experience the stories of the people involved in the work. In addition to the installation, the work has also taken the form of a website and a book, the profits of the book will be donated to Amnesty International. The artist Claudia Molitor is present at the opening of the installation on Tuesday 5th July at 2 pm telling about her work.
40 years Time of Music exhibition at the Viitasaari Library features memories, photographs, and treasures from the archives from the festival’s wild youth and more serene decades. Visitors can also leave their own memories of the summers and experiences of the Time of Music era. On Saturday and Sunday, the exhibition is open for an hour before the afternoon’s concerts and there you can meet some former major figures of the festival: former executive director Minna Huuskonen, road manager Jyrki Kemppainen, and accordeonist Timo Kinnunen who founded Time of Music with composer Jukka Tiensuu in 1982.
The talk program of the festival starts on the opening day 5th July with a great seminar organized by the city of Viitasaari, the main guest of which is the Minister of Culture and Science Petri Honkonen. In addition to him, the speakers are an impressive number of other Finnish figures in the field of contemporary music and culture. There are e.g. composer and Finlandia prize winner Osmo-Tapio Räihälä, Rosa Meriläinen, Secretary General of the Finnish Cultural and Artistic Association Kulta, composers Riikka Talvitie and Tapio Tuomela and, of course, Johan Tallgren, the current artistic director of the Time of Music. The young composers of Viitasaari and Jokilaakso Music School are responsible for the music performances.
There are also plenty of other talk program during the festival. In addition to the composers’ meetings, the curatorial course of the Summer Academy, first ever held in Finland, offers interesting new perspectives on music. The course outcomes will be heard in the City Hall on Sunday at 2 pm.
In the last two days of the festival, young talent in composers and musicians will be on display. On Sunday at 5 pm, the festival’s resident ensembles Schallfeld Ensemble and International Ensemble Modern Academy will premiere new works finalised on the composition course at the Summer Academy. On Monday at 5 pm, new works by composers will be performed by the Italian Quartetto Maurice. In addition to the premieres, Monday’s concert will feature students from the accordion course of the Summer Academy.
Time of Music has also traditionally included experimental and new ways of performing. This year, this will be provided by a collaborative course in composed theater by Mark Applebaum, with students serving their multi-artistic performances on Monday at 2 pm.
Admission to all speeches, exhibitions and course concerts is free. Concert tickets and concert passes can be purchased at the concert venue one hour before the concert or at the ticket office at the market square, open Tue–Fri from 1 pm to 4 pm and Sat–Mon 12 pm to 2 pm. You can also buy program books and other festival products from the ticket office.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Communications Coordinator Paavo Kässi, press.musiikinaika@gmail.com +358 671 2977
Artistic Director Johan Tallgren, johan.tallgren@musiikinaika.org, +358 40 742 6345
Ticket sales Minja Kuronen, minja.kuronen@musiikinaika.org, +358 44 599 3195To view the complete programme, click here.
Festival tickets are can be purchased from https://www.lippu.fi/artist/musiikin-aika/