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In the summer 2019, the Kuhmo Chamber Music festival celebrates its 50th anniversary. To congratulate the one-of-a-kind festival, FMQ re-publishes Anu Karlson's article exploring the festival, its history and the"Kuhmo spirit". The article was first published in FMQ 2/1996.

"Kullervo is a five-movement composition which depicts the main events from the (Kalevala) hero's life. The depiction is so vivid and so completely Finnish that at every point the work overflows with the grave and melancholy spirit of old Finland. We must marvel at the fact that Mr Sibelius has kept to the same very Finnish style from beginning to end of his work. "

Viitasaari was once again the crossroads for different generations of composers: from the “dinosaurs” Brian Ferneyhough and Harrison Birtwistle to recent breakthroughs such as Mark André and Pierluigi Billone, to name just a few, along with the Finnish Lauri Supponen and Heinz-Juhani Hofmann.

“If there is much room around a composer’s ‘self’ both in nature and culture, discreteness and the experience of space can probably be heard in her or his music.”

"The album as a whole is moving; nostalgia in its many forms is woven into the music, and longing is expressed through carefully selected instrumental combinations."

"As experimental but more electronically enhanced than its predecessor, Under the Ground echoes with the sound of cyberpunk and sci-fi e-books rather than ancient manuscripts and dusty scrolls of parchment. "

I am approaching the age when you begin to reflect on the fundamentals of life and feel the need to pare away all inessentials. For that reason my opus 110, The Singing Tree, my first opera, is a work I have taken particular pains to shape as clearly and distinctly as possible so that every note in the score can be grasped...

”Being a composer in Finland" means above all capturing the intellectual mood, and this also involves an understanding of the country's own traditions."

"In true soul tradition, the album is a praise of life with horns and percussion creating a full sound."