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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."

"Art should be able to stir us, to wake us from our dreaming and our torpor, so that we should be forced to take a stand on the work and explain to ourselves what it means. If a composition is capable of this, then it has at the same time been able to activate the listener both emotionally and intellectually."

It all began when Ellen Urho, then Rector of the Sibelius Academy, hit on the idea of launching a musical counterpart to Form Function Finland and Books from Finland, devoted to design, architecture and literature...