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How does one organise arts education in a multi-ethnic society? Whose culture should be taught? What should be considered in drawing up a national curriculum for music? The Finnish-Nepalese-Israeli project Global Visions Through Mobilizing Networks is contributing to the development of music education in Nepal.

Two jazz professionals, journalist Andreas Müller and label manager Dave Stapleton, had a brief chat about Finnish jazz prior to Jazzahead! 2017, the international jazz expo and showcase festival taking place from 27 until 30 April in Bremen, Germany.

During her long and winding career, Iro Haarla has reinvented herself many times over. She has rolled with the punches and beat all odds to become one of the most original and soulful composers in Nordic jazz.

Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble fuses West African rhythms to an array of jazz, funk and rock for a high-energy sound that appeals to heart, head and feet. Born in Benin in 2009, the band has won fans with high-energy live shows on three continents.

Composing is acquiring an important role at Finland’s music institutes and schools. In the revised curricula, composing is identified as an activity that is – or at least should be – accessible to everyone and whose positive impacts extend far beyond the realm of music itself.

The drama emerges from the everyday conversations of the Judge’s family but expands in the viewer’s mind – thanks in no small part to Talvitie’s powerful music, reflecting horrors in its shrieking noises, dissonances and nightmarish repetitions.

After a string of debuts with renowned orchestras, Santtu-Matias Rouvali is about to take up two significant new positions. Andrew Mellor met him to discuss psychology, leadership and Finland’s musical future.

Väinö Raitio was a Modernist Finnish composer whose works were received with considerable reservations in his lifetime. Today, Raitio’s music is interesting both because of the period in which it was written and because of its artistic quality. Pluralism has rehabilitated Raitio, and music historians no longer need to adhere to the dramatic martyrdom conventionally ascribed to him.

Independent Finland is 100 years old and has a classical music scene that is diverse, pluralist and multicultural. A century ago, the situation was very different: just as the nation was heavily polarised after the bitter Civil War, musical life was similarly divided. It is not too much of a simplification to identify two musical camps: official national neo-Romanticism and “left-wing” modernism.