Programme

Our Festival program for the 25th Our Festival, held in and around Lake Tuusula 25th to 31 July 2021, will be published here in spring 2021. Join our mailing list here if you want to be notified of the program publication via email. You can view the program from Our Festival’s 2020 edition below.

Meidän Festivaali / Our Festival 26.7-1.8.2020

Our Festival (in Finnish: Meidän Festivaali) is renowned for its fresh approach to the arts and bold crossover events. The open-minded and socially aware Festival was first held in 1997 as Chamber Music by Lake Tuusula, changed it name to Our Festival in 2011 and is now an annual event.

Meidän Festivaali
Our Festival
Järvenpää / Tuusula
26.7.-1.8.2020
Artistic Director
Kamus
POIKKEUS / EXCEPTION / UNDANTAG

Dear Festival guest!

At Our Festival 2020 our meaning was to celebrate the composer Ludwig van Beethoven, born 250 years ago, with a theme by the name ”Without”. We wanted to investigate without what Beethoven would not have become the gigantic revolutionist that he turned out to be, and on the other hand we were intrigued by what the world would be like without him. Naturally, we were going to do this without playing a note composed by him. We invited the fantastic Nuppu Koivisto to widen our scope as the fifth planner of Our Festival 2020.

Our Festival is snappy, agile and peppery, which is why we, both the artists and staff, can also this year aim to make sure that overtones resonate and experiences are transmitted in and around Lake Tuusula. However, the prevalent conditions and exceptional times demanded a change of heart regarding out theme for Our Festival 2020, and thus this year our theme is ”Exception”.

As we write this, the audience has been without concerts and the artsist without audience for a time that feels like eternity, and make no mistake that this time has emphasized how important the audience is for us. We have, luckily, seen many more streamed events than usually, and a lot of good things have come out them, but you won’t believe how much we have missed a real live audience! When we finally get to meet again in near future, we do believe it will be an emotional experience for sure.

Right now it’s looking like we’ll meet at Our Festival 2020. Looking forward to it impatiently, our eyes fixed in the hopeful future horizons, we wish you a bountiful Our Festival! 

Terhi, Jukka, Jussi and Petja
Kamus

SUNDAY 26 JULY
12-4pm, Järvenpää / Tuusula
Our Tour

Two groups will swoop around Tuusula and Järvenpää to make some noise behind windows and below balconies in six different elderly homes. At least Jampankaari in Järvenpää and Riihikallio in Tuusula will be en route.

The tours are made possible by OP Uusimaa.

Free admission. The audience is advised to keep social distance.
Outdoor experience. Weather conditions permitting.

MONDAY 27 JULY

1pm, 1.30pm, 2pm, 3.30pm, 4pm, 4.30pm, 5pm, 6pm, 6.30pm, 7pm, Ainola
Ainola I-X

Our Festival spreads in and around Ainola to the cafe, villa and forest for the whole day. Small audience groups are guided – not by hand, but from a safe distance – to three different experiences.

Jean Sibelius: Adagio in d minor
Kamus

Solo
Aki Rissanen, piano

Duo
Duo Emilia Lajunen & Suvi Oskala

Duration appr. 1 h.

Tickets 49 / 43 / 30 €
from Our Shop in advance.

Treats from Cafe Aulis are available right in the beginning of the concert experience:
A bun & coffee or tea 6,50 €
Lemon-marengue pie & coffee or tea 9 €
Salmon sandwich & coffee or tea 9 €

Partially outdoor experience – there’s no bad weather, only bad cleather. We kindly ask you to dress weather appropriate. There will be short distances walked on pathways, kindly take this in to account when choosing your footwear. We might ask you to wear a face mask provided by the Festival.

Please arrive to Ainola 10 minutes prior to the concert latest.

TUEDSAY 28 JULY

11am–5:15pm, Aleksis Kivi Memorial Cottage
Sounds from the Memorial Cottage

Aleksis Kivi’s cottage will make some noises once per hour throughout the day. ”Some aspects of Peltoniemi Hintrik’s funeral march” by composer Aulis Sallinen depicts aptly the final, rather stormy times of our national poet in this cottage. The piece will be heard from a recording of Kamus String Quartet playing the work in Brussels in autumn 2019, and it will resonate in the cottage at 11am, 12 at noon, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm and 5pm.

Outdoor experience. The sound installation is listened to from the yard of the cottage. Duration appr. 15 minutes.
Free admission. The audience is advised to keep social distance.

We thank RTBF Musiq3 for the recording and cooperation!

4pm, Suviranta garden
Diversity

What’s diversity like in music? How about our gardens? We’ll hear a diverse music array by Kamus and guitarist Ismo Eskelinen and biologist Leena Luoto will tell us more about creepy & furry crawlers in the garden (in Finnish).

Fanny Mendelssohn: String Quartet in Eb Major (1834)
Kamus

Keynote (in Finnish)
Leena Luoto, biologist

Tan Dun: Seven Desires for guitar (2002)
1. Senza misura – Dolce molto
2. Andante
3. Adagio – Senza misura
4. Rubato
5. Poco rubato
6. Dolce rubato
7. Allegro vivace – Dolce molto
Ismo Eskelinen, guitar

Justinian Tamusuza: Mu Kkubo Ery ’Omusaalaba, 1st movement: Ekitundu Ekisooka (1992)
Kamus

Lotta Wennäkoski: Tocca II (2020)
Jukka Untamala, violin
Ismo Eskelinen, guitar

YLE broadcasts this concert.

Outdoor experience – we kindly ask you to dress weather appropriate. If it’s raining cats & dogs, the concert will be moved to Järvenpää Art Museum.

Sold out.

WEDNESDAY 29 JULY

2pm & 3pm, Lake Tuusula
Row the composition I & II

Our Festival has ordered a composition from Tytti Arola for a string quartet and Lake Tuusula, due 2021. But how can a string quartet play with a lake? Two mini audiences of two will get a front row (pun intended) seat at following compositional work, when we take the rowing boat out to the Lake to hear what Lake Tuusula has to say about all this.

In addition to composer Tytti Arola the audience is joined by a staff member from Our Festival. The trip starts from Kallio-kuninkala yard and duration of the trip is appr. 45 minutes.

Outdoor experience. Weather conditions permitting. Our Festival offers life jackets.

Sold out.

7pm, Krapin Paja
Frigg

Party! Finally grown out of teenage years, the super-group of nordic folk music Frigg will put up a ball at Krapin Paja. We’ll see how Kamus keeps up with proper folk fiddling! The gig, in these expectional times, will be streamed far and wide and a limited audience will join us on spot.

Tickets to Krapin Paja are sold out.

Tickets to the stream available from konserttikotiin.fi, 9 € >>

THURSDAY 30 JULY

6:45pm, 7:15pm, 7:45pm, 8:15pm, 9:15pm, 9:45pm and 10:15pm, Halosenniemi
Halosenniemi I–VII

On Thursday Our Festival will enjoy the perfect sunset of Halosenniemi for the whole evening. Mini-audiences enter the concert venue in relayed manner and take a tour of three performances in the exceptional Halosenniemi log atelier and it’s surroundings.

Caroline Shaw: Entr’acte (2011)
Kamus

A poem for the road
Mirjami Heikkinen, recitation

Luys De Narváez: Los seys libros del Delphin de Música (1538)
Alonso Mudarra: Tres Libros de Musica en Cifras para Vihuela (1546)
Ismo Eskelinen, guitar

Duration appr. 50 min.

Tickets 45 / 40 / 25 €
from Our Shop in advance.

Partially outdoor experience – there’s no bad weather, only bad cleather. We kindly ask you to dress weather appropriate. There will be short distances walked on pathways, kindly take this in to account when choosing your footwear. We might ask you to wear a face mask provided by the Festival.

Please arrive to Halosenniemi 10 minutes prior to the concert latest.

FRIDAY 31 JULY

6pm, Järvenpää house
Uninterrupted

Calm down and take a deep breath. We will listen to Bach and Beethoven together, for an hour, with no interruptions. A restricted audience will be allowed to gather in Sibelius Hall and unlimited audience can join via live stream.

Selection of Bach
Pekka Kuusisto, violin
Paavali Jumppanen, piano

Ludwig van Beethoven: 3rd movement from Quartett op. 132 in a minor, ”Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity – Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart”
Kamus

Tickets 35 / 30 / 20 €
from Our Shop in advance.

Ticket to the stream available from konserttikotiin.fi, 9 € >>

SATURDAY 1 AUGUST

3pm, 3:30pm and 4pm, Kallio-Kuninkala, Leonora Hall
Immediate Music 3

Due to the corona pandemic we’re unable to meet our international friends at Lake Tuusula this summer. Thus the planned trio-cooperation for Olavi Louhivuori, Glenn Kotche and Tony Buck will commence in long distance. An installation combining the three drummers via recordings and live performance will premiere on Our Festival’s final day.
 
Tony Buck, known for his work with e.g. The Necks, and Glenn Kotche, best known for his drummer position on the Chicago-based band Wilco, but also and a composer and diverse musician working with such great ensembles as Kronos Quartet, are referred to as ”hero drummers” by Louhivuori. ”I’m very much looking forward to performing with my two hero drummers. The experience will be thrilling and unique, as none of us has worked quite like this before,” Louhivuori explains.
 
In the Immediate Music Installation Glenn and Tony will be present as recordings, projected on two surfaces in Leonora Hall, while Olavi will be improvising with the recordings live.
The installation lasts for 15 minutes and is played three times during the day. Please arrive at least 5 minutes before the starting time.
 
Olavi Louhivuori’s Immediate Music, a five-part album project, is now reaching it’s third episode. Immediate Music is an exploration of musical freedom and immediate expressions, where Louhivuori invites two other musicians to dive in to the limits of creativity and record that on an album. The first two Immediate Music albums were released in 2018 and 2019, featuring jouhikko player Pekko Käppi and sound engineer Teemu Korpipää and pianists Emil Holmström and Joonas Ahonen alongside Louhivuori.
Tickets 7 / 5 / 5 €
from Our Shop in advance.

5pm, Kallio-Kuninkala garden
Picnic

On the final day of the Festival we return to home field, quite literally, to Kallio-kuninkala estate. The musicians will be positioned in the balcony and the audience spread around the estate garden, to which the music played from the balcony is lightly amplified.

Outi Tarkiainen: Until the stone splits
Terhi Paldanius, violin

Amanda Maier-Röntgen: Sonata for violin and piano in B minor
Pekka Kuusisto, violin
Paavali Jumppanen, piano

Keynote (in Finnish)
Nuppu Koivisto, researcher

Caroline Shaw: in manus tuas
Petja Kainulainen, cello

Johannes Brahms: Horn trio in Eb Major op. 40
Jukka Harju, horn
Pekka Kuusisto, violin
Paavali Jumppanen, piano

Sold out.

Arrival: The spots in the Garden will be given out on first-in-first-served -principle. Entrance to the garden is opened an hour prior to the concert. The garden is entered to via the main building of the estate, Ylä-kuninkala, where also the tickets will be inspected. Festival staff will guide You to the garden. The audience is allowed to move freely in the garden once settled, provided that safe distances are maintained at all times.

Outdoor experience – we kindly ask you to dress weather appropriate. If it’s raining cats & dogs, the concert will be moved indoors to Kallio-kuninkala estate.

Right to changes reserved.

Ylös