MuTe 25 Years Jubilee Concert
Friday 1 December 2023, Musiikkitalo, Black Box
Programme
The MuTe Handheld Orchestra: Fanfare: Improvised community performance (3:00)
Paola Livorsi: Rooms of Elements, Eau 3/Watery 3 (2:07)
Raoul Björkenheim / 5 channel mix by Risto Hemmi: Always but Never (11:08)
Paola Livorsi: Rooms of Elements, Feu 1/Fiery 1 (2:52)
James Andean: Déchirure (7:35)
Paola Livorsi: Rooms of Elements, Earth 7/Earthly 1 (1:44)
Intermission
The MuTe Handheld Orchestra: Spatial performance (~5 min)
Elisa Härmä: Winter Sun Remix (5:00)
Jonatan Snapir and Ænie: Shroid, free improvisation (~12 min)
Mute Bandi: 1st year Students (~10 min)
- Roosa Räsänen: Kun aika jättää meistä (2023)
- Elias Nieminen: Jäävuoret (2023)
The past, the present, the future
The Department of Music and Technology celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. These have been years of intense artistic and academic activity.
In the afternoon, we will share a visual retrospective of life in our department in the Agora space, then we will have a toast and a moment for reminiscing and immerse ourselves in a transcultural sound walk experience facilitated by Marianne Decoster-Taivalkoski.
In the evening concert we propose a journey along the timeline of the department, from a retrospective of what has been done and the prospective futures, spiced of course with live performances. We will hear pieces from the SACMUS studio era, as it was called 25 years ago, as well as works by more recent younger generations. The pieces are composed or arranged for multichannel systems in various configurations and a diversity of styles, in line with the main theme of Spatial Audio Week.
We look forward to sharing our thoughts and ideas on how to embrace all the challenges and opportunities that technology brings to the field of music, so come and join us.
Program notes
Paola Livorsi, Rooms of Elements
Quadraphonic (2006)
Rooms of Elements (2006) s a set of electronic sounds especially conceived for the Nordic textile art exhibition « 1 : ∞», Helsinki Forum Box gallery 2006, Trondheim Konstmuseum and Reykjavik ASI Museum 2007.
The philosophical issue involved in the title made me turn rather to our world than to any metaphysical idea. Reality may be closer to poetry than pure imagination. Human beings can experience infinite when in contact with nature, they can be bridges between earth and air.
The relation to space is central in this work: each sound set was installed in a different room, in different combinations according to the main element of the room (water, fire, earth/air).
Nature sounds were worked out with Modalys, simulating surfaces and strings made of different materials. Many ideas came from the collaboration with Kristiina Wiherheimo, Agneta Hobin, and Marianne Mannsåker: in Watery the elements are mostly mica, steel and bronze, from Hobin’s works; in Fiery there are silk cloths and little glass objects from Wiherheimo’s materials; Earthly is inspired to the warm, natural fibres and colours of Mannsåker’s tapestries – combining earth, air, and human voices (from Inuit throat riddles).
Paola Livorsi (b. 1967) Composer and researcher, studied in Turin, Paris (CCMIX 1999, IRCAM 2000), and Helsinki (1997-98) with Kaija Saariaho and Jean-Baptiste Barrière. Her music was played in international festivals, such as März Musik, Biennale di Venezia, Musik in 21. Jahrhundert Saarbrücken, and Takefu International Music Festival. Over the years, she developed an interest in looking out of the box, starting collaborations with other artists and in diverse contexts, which led to her artistic doctoral studies at the Centre of Music and Technology (2015-2023). Her doctoral work Human voice and instrumental voice: an investigation of voicelikeness is published in the Taju repository and in the Research Catalogue.
Paola Livorsi is a Doctor of Music from the department of Music & Technology and has just graduated in fall of 2023.
Raoul Björkenheim, Always but Never (2018) in a 5-channel recording by Risto Hemmi
Always but Never
Aina, mutta ei koskaan
Alltid men aldrig
Juhani Aaltonen – Huilut ja saksofoni / Flöjter och saxofon / Flutes and saxophone
Raoul Biörkenheim – Kitarat / Gitarrer / Guitars
Jori Huhtala – Basso / Bas / Bass
Verneri Pohjola – Trumpetti / Trumpet
Tatu Rönkkö – Lyömäsoittimet / Slagverk / Percussion
Risto Hemmi, Sound recording and mixing
Raoul Björkenheim is a Finnish-American guitarist and composer who has been creating original music for the past four decades living in New York City and Helsinki, where he is presently based. Describing his on-going work as investigative guitarism, he is best known for an expressionistic and lyrical guitar style. Björkenheim’s eclectic discography numbers 50+ albums, ranging from ambient soundscapes to visceral freejazz, from duo to big band. His large-scale works for symphony orchestra have yet to be recorded, and he has also composed scores for over ten films and dance productions.
Björkenheim has collaborated musically with Bill Laswell, Toshinori Kondo, William Parker, Mats Gustafsson, Hamid Drake, Ingebrigt Flaten, Paal Nilssen-Love, Gerald Cleaver, Henry Kaiser, Lukas Ligeti, Morgan Ågren, Paul Schütze, Edward Vesala and Juhani Aaltonen, for the labels ECM, Rune Grammofon, Cuneiform, Tum Records and Long Song records.
Björkenheim has been awarded the Georgie Prize for best jazz musician of the year, the Young Finland Award, the Emma prize for best jazz recording of the year, and been nominated three times for the Nordic Music Award.
Risto Hemmi is a prominent figure in the Finnish music industry. For a long time, he was the CEO of Finland’s largest recording studio, Finnvox Studios, and is still a board member and one of the owners. Hemmi began his career at Finnvox in 1979 and has worked in various capacities such as a sound engineer, mixer, and studio manager. He served as the CEO of the studio from 1993 until recently. All of Finnvox’s nine studios have been designed by Hemmi.
One of Hemmi’s early commercially successful works was the Pelle Miljoona Oy’s album ”Moottoritie on kuuma” (1980). Hemmi has recorded and mixed over 500 albums, many of which have achieved gold or platinum status. In addition to his work in the studio, Hemmi has also contributed to the film industry by recording and mixing music for about thirty films, including the 2014 film Big Game, directed by Jalmari Helander and starring Samuel L. Jackson. Hemmi teaches advanced recording techniques at the Music & Technology department. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risto_Hemmi)
James Andean: Déchirure
2013, stereo, 7:35
Déchirure: a tearing, a painful separation…
This piece involves a number of ’déchirures’, both musical as well as figurative (personal separations; the plaintive cry of the distant train…) although the only literal ’tearing’ is saved for the final phrase. It is also a reference to the sound materials: through the act of recording, these have been ripped from the world and moment which birthed them, to be reappropriated through the creative act in the creation of this piece.
This work was composed for the Presque Rien 2013 project, for which sounds from Luc Ferrari’s archives were made available to composers for the composition of new works.
‘Déchirure’ was realized in 2013 in studio Erkki of the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, and premiered on November 14th 2013 during the MuTeFest’13 festival, Helsinki. The piece was composed for the Presque Rien 2013 project, for which sounds from Luc Ferrari’s
archives were made available to composers for the composition of new works. Thanks to Brunhild Ferrari. ‘Déchirure’ was awarded the 2nd Prize at the Presque Rien Competition (Paris, France, 2013).
James Andean is a doctoral candidate at the department of Music & Technology and is due to graduate in spring of 2024.
The MuTe Handheld Orchestra
Faculty members of the department of Music & Technology
Elisa Härmä, Winter Sun Remix (2022)
Master student at the Music & Technology department.
Shroid, free improvisation by snapir and Ænie
Jonatan Snapir / Saku Liimatainen, MuTe 3rd Year Students
Mute 1st Year Students: Mute Bandi
Aino Latvala – Clarinet
Armi Lampela – Piano / Backing vocals
Roosa Räsänen – Accordion / Vocals
Jekaterina Viltsenko – Violin
Lumi Mannermaa – Cello
Otso Kauniskangas – Synth bass / Glockenspiel
Elias Nieminen – Banjo / Percussion
Niko Setälä – Acoustic Guitar
Link to event details
Spatial Audio Week: MuTe 25 Years Jubilee Concert in the Uniarts Helsinki event calendar