Creative Dialogue

Presentation

Throughout its eleven years of operation, the Creative Dialogue workshop has already united nearly one hundred composers and musicians from around the world.

Instrumentalists and composers usually study in the same educational institutions. Nonetheless, composition students rarely get the chance to work with musicians. Cellist Anssi Karttunen and composers Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg created the Creative Dialogue workshop concept in 2008 in collaboration with the Sibelius Academy to open up new horizons and create new dialogue between young artists. Since then, these workshops have been an integral part of international activities of the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki.

The first six Creative Dialogue workshops were held at the Acequia Madre House in Santa Fe, United States. In 2015, the workshop was held for the first time in Finland at the Kallio-Kuninkala course center in Järvenpää. Since then, the Creative Dialogue has been organized alternatively  in Finland and the United States. The workshop helps students to network and work closely together and deepen their understanding of how the relationships between composers and performers have influenced the history of music. Over the years, the workshops have been taught by Anssi Karttunen, Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg and visiting teachers like flutist Chen Halevi and soprano Barbara Hannigan, among others.

Collaboration with the Sibelius Academy ended in 2023 but the project goes on.

Collaborating universities

• Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki
• Guildhall School of Music
• Conservatoire de Paris CNSM
• Conservatoire de Geneve
• Amsterdam Conservatory
• Oslo Conservatory
• Colburn School of Music
• Copenhagen Conservatory
• Columbia University
• Cornell University
• Butler School of Music, Univ. of Texas
• Eastman School of Music
• Indiana University
• Juilliard School of Music and Drama
• McGill University
• Mannes College of Music
• Manhattan School of Music
• New England Conservatory
• Northwestern University
• Royal Academy of Music (London)
• Yale School of Music
• University of California San Diego
• University of Minnesota School of Music