Reading my blog posts from earlier this year I seemed to have a very optimistic view of the duration of the pandemic. I was proven wrong and the U.S. and Canadian tour (more about that here) with the soprano Tessan-Maria Lehmussaari is now postponed until 2022. But good things come to those who wait! Or...? Me and my fellow artists managed to make this a memorable year after all. We did what we could under the circumstances and, as one can guess, learned a lot about tech in the process. 

I was one of the many that received a working grant from the Arts Promotion Center of Finland in the beginning of the summer. That allowed me to practise for future concerts in the peace and quiet of the Turku archipelago and made an almost gigless summer much better! My only regret is that I didn't spend more time designing when I had the opportunity. Luckily, I did manage to update my New out of old -gallery (link) with pictures taken by Tessan's sister, photographer Mirella Lehmussaari. When we were shooting our promotional tour photos, we used the studio time wisely which allowed Mirella to snap a few shots of a tablecloth-dress and a coat I've made out of reused denim, see below.

In October me and Tessan performed a handful of our tour pieces at the Stockholm Concert house. I haven't played there since I got the Royal Music Academy's scholarship in 2015 and it was fantastic to be back. Because of lighter restrictions around that time we also had a little live audience in addition to the streaming, which was very refreshing. The event was a lecture-concert dedicated to Jenny Lind's 200th birthday and we were joined on stage by Sweden's leading connoisseurs of song technique, history and the life of Jenny Lind. Watch the entire concert here:

In December, the Swedish Church did their part in making sure people have seasonal music around them despite having to cancel all the traditional yuletide singalongs. Their wonderful digital Xmas calendar (click here, then scroll down to see the "calendar doors" with dates) was recorded as a collaboration between different cities and congregations. Most songs were recorded in Finnish and Swedish and the performers are mostly freelance musicians or working for the church. My contributions to the Xmas calendar, which were recorded in the Finnish Church of Stockholm, were published on the 9th, 13th and 20th December. Here's a direct link to one of them, the others can be found on the website I mentioned above.

Another nice way of maintaining traditions in these crazy times was the annual independence day concert organized by the Finnish Institute of Stockholm. Playing in their concert hall, named after Finland's most famous composer of all time, Jean Sibelius, has been on my to-do -list for a few years now so it felt like a win even without a live audience. I was happy to play with the flute-virtuoso Miia Roiko-Jokela once again, exactly a year after our debut as a duo. Here's a few screencaps from the day:

Thanks to social media and common friends in the movie industry, I met the amazing composer and producer David Engellau in January when he was looking for a pianist to record some of his work. The results of that meeting are now immortalized on his beautiful album Inbetween, which can be found on Spotify. This year went full circle two days ago when I revisited David's studio, where we started working on new material. So I'm already one foot in 2021!

My only new year's resolution is to dedicate more time to the art of fashion, especially if the situation with Covid19 shouldn't improve as fast as we all hope it will. 

-Silja

We'd be on tour now

As I told in my previous blog post, right now I would be on the second stretch of a multinational tour with this year's Jenny Lind -prizewinner, soprano Tessan-Maria Lehmussaari. We would have visited Toronto, New York, Washington D.C., New Orleans and San Francisco in June, and would right now be touring in Sweden. As sad as it is to postpone or cancel most events this year, now we have something to look forward to in 2021! In the meantime we wanted the American friends of the Jenny Lind -tour to get a sneak peek at what's in store and recorded a few of the pieces we've been working on. This "teaser", that features music from Clara Schumann, Peter Heise and Benjamin Britten, was filmed in the Finnish Church here in Stockholm in the beginning of June by the singer herself.

Japanese film music meets street dance and manga

I collaborated with the manga artist/drawing teacher Elin Alskog Berglund and dancer/choreographer Sanda Tcacencu to plan a show that features piano music spiced up by a dance routine and live- drawing. As I mentioned in an earlier blogpost, the plan to combine different art forms in beautiful surroundings was there since I met Sanda at Våga Visa (read more about that here), but the project finally came into fruition in February this year after we found a venue and got sponsored by Nacka county.

Elin, Sanda and I all love Japanese anime-films and we wanted to bring their strong visual aspects and music together in the form of a live show in a familiar venue, the Nacka church. We got incredibly positive feedback from the audience, most of whom had never been to a piano concert before. I've often found that the relationship between music and visual arts is an area that needs to be explored more, in fact I even wrote my master's thesis about it. So this won't be the last time I let different art forms play together! Here is a little compilation of our performance:

- Silja

In my latest blog post I mentioned a collaboration with the soprano Tessan-Maria Lehmussaari, but that I wasn't allowed to talk about the details yet.

Mid-January we finally went official with the news that Tessan-Maria is the recipient of this year's Jenny Lind- scholarship. "Soprano Tessan-Maria Lehmussari has been named this year's Jenny Lind Scholar of the Royal Swedish Music Academy and Folkets Hus & Parker in Sweden. With this, this large scholarship is re-launched in a new collaboration during the celebration of Jenny Lind's 200th anniversary in 2020." (Svanholm Artists website) As part of the scholarship, Tessan-Maria will be sent on two tours: a month in North-America and a month in Sweden. And the tour pianist is yours truly!

But as you know, things aren't really as they were not so long ago. Due to covid-19 much of the culture world is at a standstill right now, many of my projects included. We've had a dialogue with FHP and the Royal Music Academy and at least the first tour is now postponed. It remains to be seen if we're able to do the Swedish tour this summer of if that, too, needs to be postponed to either 2021 or indefinitely. We've worked hard at the program so whenever we do have our next concert or tour, it's going to be amazing!

Tessan-Maria's multitalented sister Mirella photographed us a couple of weeks ago when life was still close to normal and we were still fully planning our tour-summer. Some of the results of the photoshoot will be published in my gallery- section at a later time.

Right now I'm trying to stay one step ahead of the times and prepare for future concerts without a certainty of when they'll be possible again. Some of my gigs have been moved to the autumn term (including one that the king of Sweden might attend!) so  it's going to be a very eventful end of the year if we first survive the pandemic.

Player piano

Now that my life as a culture worker has certainly seen better days and I'm practising with a brighter future in mind, it's also time to reminisce. Here's a throwback to last fall when I visited the piano museum Klaverens Hus with Pavel Matveyev, one of the artists behind the Player piano- project I've mentioned before. This was my first visit to the piano museum after 2017 and it was wonderful to see the instruments again. During our visit my hands were photographed hundreds of times from various angles so that people who try the Player piano software will get visual feedback of what they're playing, along with the sound. I got to see the app in action at a Player piano- open house in Stockholm later last fall. You can read about the project at Nordiska Konstförbundet and Pavel Matveyev's own website.

Mänttä music festival

Last summer I had the honor of working at Mänttä music festival for the 6th time. We had a similar plan as in 2018, of collaborating with the great designer Anne-Mari Pahkala, a true fashion artist. This time she had a bridal wear exhibition at the luxurious Mänttä Club and I got to plan pop up- concerts that reflected its themes of love, companionship and joy. My duo-partner was the lovely Sarah Devoyon, a rare gem of a musician soon to graduate from the esteemed Sibelius Academy with cello as her main instrument. In addition to that she's also an established children's pedagog and singer.

This summer I sadly won't make it to Mänttä due to the Jenny Lind- tour. Whether the latter part of our two month tour works out or not, remains to be seen. For now I suppose all I can do is make the most of these uncertain times and do my part in flattening the curve.

-Silja

It seems only logical that the more I work the less I have time to write about it, right? So I'll use pictures rather than words to summarize what's been up lately.

I started a new collaboration with Miia Roiko-Jokela, who did her M. A. at the Royal Music Academy of Stockholm shortly after me. Her instrument, the flute, is especially meaningful to me after spending my childhood in a household where both parents were professional flutists! We've so far played together only twice but have a few gigs booked for this spring. Our duo's theme is of course to bring out our Finnish roots: so far our program consists of only Finnish music, ranging from the classical era of Crusell, to the national romanticism of Sibelius, to more contemporary composers such as Jack Mattsson and Kaija Saariaho.

Working with singers is always a pleasure. My wonderful soprano Pauliina Sairanen got a job at the Oslo Opera House so this time, when I was invited to do a Christmas concert with a singer, I contacted the lovely Tessan-Maria Lehmussaari, an alumn of the Stockholm Opera Academy. We did one intense day of two concerts in 2017, so it was long time no see and lovely to work with her again. There is more news on that front, but I'm not allowed to talk about it yet...

Me and my cellist Vincent Wistrand hosted our family friendly movie music concert in the lovely Grunewaldvillan. This was the second year that we've received a culture stipendium from Nacka County, and we intend to make an annual tradition of organising themed chamber music concerts with their support (if indeed we get it again in 2020). Vincent and I have a few concerts already booked for this spring, among others Karby Gård in Täby.

And apropos the Nacka county culture stipendiums! I received my third one in a row, this time for a collaboration with dancer Sanda Tcacencu and manga- artist Elin Alskog. We are the first trio to perform in Nacka church combining manga illustration, a dance choreography and piano music. The three of us have never worked together like this before. I know Sanda from Våga Visa (she's one of the observers) and Elin from Östermalms Musik och Kulturskola where we both teach. How the results will look and sound, can be witnessed on Sunday the 16th of February in Nacka church at 18:00, and more details about the project and my partners in crime will follow.

Unfortunately I never actually made it to Jämtland last summer to see the play Emil i Lönneberga, where some of the costumes were my creations. But almost all of the performances were sold out and Höglunda Teater was praised in the local news and by theater-goers. I'm still anxious to see some video footage and get much more pictures, but the few I've seen so far look very good and the production team remembered me with this wonderful card:

To be continued!
-Silja

Emil i Lönneberga

The first third of 2019 has been exciting! This summer I’ll have the pleasure of collaborating with a new summer theater in Jämtland called Höglunda Teater. They're working on a production of Astrid Lindgren’s famous Emil of Lönneberga. I’ll be designing and manufacturing costumes for some of the main characters. The biggest challenge is getting the children’s sizes right and sewing headwear. Many of my classmates in design school had milliner’s experience but I sadly don’t, so, first time for everything I guess!

Våga Visa

In other news, I’m soon about to finish my first term as an observer at Våga Visa. Våga Visa is a method and network for a unified quality evaluation of cultural education in the greater Stockholm area. The observers’ job is to write a report and evaluate whichever school they get sent to. All participating schools get an evaluation approximately once every third year and an observation period is a few weeks of intense lesson visits and report-writing.

For me, it was very educational to get to observe and evaluate a school I didn’t know much about before. Moreover, it's now been 3 years since I completed the written part of my master's thesis so my academic swedish was getting a bit rusty. From the observed schools' perspective, having fresh pairs of eyes scrutinize all aspects of their facility from an outsider’s perspective and then getting a report about it is very informative for their future progress. And last but not least, the reports and ratings are public to make comparisons between schools easier. You can read more about Våga Visa here.

Sound of music

In march I had the pleasure of collaborating with Opus Norden on their production of Sound of Music. Sound of Music has become their tradition and this was my second time as a one person orchestra for their choirs and soloists. They made local newspaper headlines with the musical and the venue was sold out. It was an honor and a great responsibility to accompany the entire musical. The music isn’t technically that challenging but I had over 200 pages to learn so it felt like a piano marathon! You can read Opus Norden’s (swedish) blog posts about the production on their website and Facebook.


My 6- handed arrangement of a famous waltz

This spring Östermalms Musik- och Kulturskola will have its annual Samklang- concert in Nacka Aula on May the 26th. For that, I’ve done my first 6- handed piano arrangement ever (how often do you get to do that?). The piece is Johann Strauss’ famous waltz ”The Blue Danube”, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it transforms in the hands of our talented piano students.

Upcoming mothers' day concert

On the 12th of May I’m playing a mothers’ day concert together with the super talented singer Pauliina Sairanen in Gustavsberg’s church, 2PM! Pauliina is the recipient of Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien’s scholarship and she’s been a soprano soloist with the Oulu symphony orchestra and recently also the KTH symphony orchestra in Stockholm. The concert is free of charge and we’re hoping to see a full church, despite the fact that the swedes celebrate mothers’ day a few weeks later.

-Silja

... just more, bigger and better!

Now that the year’s changed I’ve been lucky enough to have some time to just be. To take a deep breath before plunging into the next term and yes, also to plan ahead a bit. Logically, my updates to this work diary are lagging behind the more I actually do the stuff I’m supposed to be reporting about. So here are some of those things!


Sveriges Radio

In the midst of all the piano playing and designing of last fall, I’ve been delighted to make a comeback to Sweden’s radio. This fall I made four new episodes of the culture talk show Koukku (Hook), recorded and edited by the radio’s very own Kirsi Blomberg. My role was to plan the contents of the episodes, choose the guests and the venues, do the interviewing and contribute to the conversation with my own insights. The subjects varied from the social value of board games and Ingress to Äänet, a magazine for, and by, Sweden- based Finns. In contrast to the programs I made back in 2016, this time I was well out of my comfort zone! I knew hardly anything about Ingress, had never heard of the magazine Äänet, and have limited experience in board games. In a way, this brought some clarity to the talk shows: for example, we got to learn terminology that every Ingress- player is familiar with, but outsiders have never heard of. All of the Koukku- talk shows can be found here.

Mid December I got invited back to the radio to record a Christmas episode of the bilingual program Popula, that’s familiar to me from last spring. The episode is recorded in a nice combo of Finnish and Swedish which is typical for Popula: its wonderful hosts Jasmin Lindberg and Erkki Kuronen are a 100% fluent in both languages. I myself of course mumble my Mumin-swedish in the mix. You can listen to our conversation and all of the earlier Popula programs here.

EPTA conference and Japan

Flashback to late September and the same weekend when me and my duo partner had our concert in Saltsjöbaden. One of the absolute highlights of the past year, and at the same time one of the most stressful days of my career, was when I got to give a lecture about Sonoko Kase’s cluster method at the EPTA conference in Eric Ericsonhallen. EPTA stands for European Piano Teacher Association, so obviously the audience consisted of some of the foremost experts of piano pedagogy.

Sonoko Kase is the founder of Östermalms Musik och Kulturskola and she has developed her own method for teaching the basics of piano technique, all demonstrated in her book Klang i klaveret, and in our presentation at the EPTA conference. The method is based on clusters, allowing the student to start from bigger movements and then move on to fine motor skills. Playing clusters may sound odd to the some people, but that takes away the added pressure of finding a specific key at a time. This way, unnecessary tension is avoided and the student can fully focus on technique.

I was honored to do the presentation with Sonoko in front of a very prestigious audience. Among others, I saw two professors from my alma mater, the Royal Music Academy of Stockholm. Our video footage will later be edited and uploaded to ÖMK’s website, I hear!

Not only that, but my work place also did a trip to Tokyo in November. I was mind-blown by the entire week-long stay and managed to see more than I thought I would’ve in as short a time as that in as big a place as Tokyo. The trick was to get up every morning at 05, which weirdly enough happened without any alarm clocks. The jet lag afterwards was totally worth it. Me and my colleagues took back to Sweden everything we’d learned about how japanese music universities function and what parts of the japanese culture we can implement in our own pedagogic endeavours at a swedish culture school.


Pianoaura organisation’s 15- year anniversary gala

November brought with it some more prestigious audience, when I got invited to play at my other alma mater, this time the Arts Academy of Turku in Finland. Pianoaura is a Turku- based organisation that supports the art of piano music by organising competitions, concerts, workshops and master classes. Pianoaura recently turned 15 and celebrated that with, of course, a piano concert in the wonderful, industrial style, architecture prize- winning hall Sigyn. It always gives an extra buzz when you know that experts of the field are watching and listening you play. So knowing that most of the audience consisted of professional pianists or other classical music connaisseurs made me feel like the stakes were extra high for this concert. Two other very special things about this one were that I haven’t played in Sigyn hall since my bachelor’s exam in 2014 and that my mentor of many years, and a great source of inspiration, Jukka Juvonen, played right before me. In a way it felt like coming home. I’m hoping to get my hands on the footage, which I’m 95% sure exists, at some point!

Wäinö Aaltonen museum of arts

My father did indeed give his farewell- concert at the Wäinö Aaltonen museum of arts. The museum got so full there weren’t enough seats for everyone and the atmosphere was fantastic! Luckily my part was at the beginning so I could sneak into the audience and listen to rest. The now retired Visa Turunen will hopefully join me for some concerts in Stockholm as well. A nice bonus was that this is the kind of concert pictures you get when you play at a museum:

Start of the year 2019

My new year started out slowly but that's about to change. In fact, a goal for 2019 will be to start a calendar- section on this website to update my concert history and notify about upcoming gigs. Another goal is to get professional pictures of my creations in the fashion front. All too often I resort to just a few snap shots with my cell phone camera before the outfit goes to its owner. Here is a sneak peak of one new look I made out of used denim during the holidays. And this time the client was me, so I’ll still have the coat for future photoshoots!
-Silja

Grünewaldvillan and the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art

I’m happy to announce that me and my duo partner, the cellist Vincent Wistrand, got funding for a concert in Saltsjöbaden! We chose the beautiful Grünewaldvillan as the venue to be able to bring classical music to an inspirational and historical environment. It seemed natural to have the concert in a place that was built around the same time as some of the pieces in our program were composed, and also a place where classical concerts aren’t that common. Thanks to the scholarship from Nacka municipality, we played in the villa on September the 30th. The audience loved our program and that we showcased music from different eras and our skills as both chamber musicians and soloists. I’m looking forward to seeing the footage and having it edited to be published here. We played amongst others Schumann, Debussy, Kuula, Albeniz, Bach and Elgar.

Another exciting event this fall will take place on Tuesday the 23rd of October in Wäinö Aaltonen museum of art in Turku. The museum is very familiar to me from my times as a student in Turku and the last time I played there was in March 2016 in the museum’s Tuesday- series. This time the event is an important milestone in a musician’s career: the soloist of the evening will be my very own father, the flutist and flute pedagog Visa Turunen! He’s retiring from his position at Turun Seudun Musiikkiopisto and organises this concert together with some of the musicians he’s worked together with in his decades-long career. In the program are excerpts from Visa’s vast repertoire that includes blues and jazz alongside with classical music. Funnily enough, although this is his goodbye- gig, it’s also the first time we’ve publicly played as a duo! That’s something we should’ve done ages ago. Retiring from the teaching position at the Music Academy allows more time for concert- planning, so we’ll probably get more chances in the future!

Player Piano

In my previous post, I mentioned my visit to Konstfack to help out the artists Pavel Matveyev and Ricardo Atienza test drive their revolutionary way of investigating the role of old keyboard instruments in a modern context. The project is called Player Piano, and this is what the artists have to say about it:
”We are trying to grant access to the instruments that are not playable. By sampling them and using this material in an interactive environment we allow people to play the instruments that are broken or not tuned (and perhaps cannot be tuned anymore).”

The artists are also trying to make keyboard instruments more accessible to the non-musician. To master an instrument like the piano it takes years of practise and even professionals can have difficulties with certain pieces. Matveyev and Atienza want to ”shift a perspective slightly and look at a piano and other analogue key instruments as a source of sound that can be activated by anyone, regardless of their age, training and experience.”

Mänttä music festival

Then a flashback to the summer, to the 20th annual Mänttä music festival! This was my fifth year working at the festival, and my work assignments just keep getting better. I started in 2014 as a master class student and the crew’s helping hand, and this year I got the wonderful opportunity of combining my amateur reporter skills, my pianism and my love of haute couture in an exciting new project. A little bit surprisingly, I also got to design and execute the layout of the festival’s 20th anniversary photo exhibition! All the material for the exhibition had been carefully handpicked by the festival’s artistic director and founding member, Niklas Pokki. Me and my colleague, pianist Saula Baski, tried to do justice to the material we were working with and set up the exhibition in record time.

Back to the project consisting of everything I love doing the most. At the same venue as the music festival anniversary exhibition, the fashion artist Anne-Mari Pahkala had a collection of works to celebrate her 10-year career. Some of the breathtaking unique outfits had been seen at the annual independence day gala in the presidential castle. We held 4 public dialogues about the elements that Anne-Mari’s gowns and their design processes have in common with classical piano music and its performance. I got the honor of being the host, pianist and interviewer of the events, with a fabulous Steinway Spirio as my instrument. I’m very grateful to the Mänttä music festival board for trusting me with this responsibility and giving me the rare opportunity of mixing up all my favorite subjects into four events.

As for the honorary guest, Anne-Mari is a truly inspirational designer who represents the very top of finnish fashion art. Her work is frequently seen on musicians, politicians, and now also in the collection of The National Museum of Finland. To see her works close-up and hear the stories behind them was a unique experience. The four dialogues between fashion art and piano music were a great initiative from the festival producer and head of master classes, Anni Pokki. It’s very refreshing when a music festival brings together different art forms like this and I can’t wait to do something similar in the future!

- Silja

My 8th year at the Naantali music festival will hopefully not be my last! In 8 years I've worked with a lot of the little components that make a music festival run: I've been a driver, concert program layout designer, page turner and sheet music go-to-person. The same goes for many of my coworkers, we're all parts of a multi-tasking machinery. When everyone in the crew knows what they're doing, loves making the festival happen and can anticipate just about everything, the days go by "smooth as silk", as one of the festival artists pointed out, despite the hectic schedule. We as a crew have grown together during these 8 years (many of us have actually been around longer than that): often things get taken care of before anyone's had to ask. It'll be my pleasure to continue next year, stay tuned for the festival program and go check the website HERE. Oh, and did I mention the main venue is a pittoresque church in the Naantali harbor, that looks like this?

Next up is the Mänttä music festival. This year it's an honor for me to act as both presenter and pianist at a high fashion exhibition where some of the fashion artist Anne-Mari Pahkala's works are on display. I'll be interviewing the designer at four public events where music meets design - in short, bringing together the two things I love the most! My artist picture (taken of course by the wonderful Justyna Krzyzanowska) and a presentation can be read on the festvial website. Needless to say, I'm in good company...

New braids

The whole summer's been unusually warm here in the Nordic countries. One of the best coping mechanisms for the heat for those of us who don't want to chop off our hair, is to braid it. Some new hairdos can now be found in my braid-gallery, go take a look!

Audio arts at Konstfack

Last fall I had the honour of playing one movement of Ravel's G major piano concerto and some of Philip Glass' minimalistic repertoire at a beautiful wedding at Klaverens hus. One of the grooms, Pavel Matveyev, is a true artistic visionary, who's studied at Stockholm's Konstfack and has now started a project together with Klaverens hus, a piano museum with about 500 keyboard instruments. He and his collaborator asked me for some professional feedback on their new revolutionary way of playing multiple keyboard instruments at the same time. I visited Konstfack's sound lab and got to see (and play with!) the work in progress. Earlier this year we did an interview, which is also going to be a part of the artwork that merges modern digital technology with the sounds of acoustic keyboard instruments  recorded at Klaverens hus. The instruments in question can be anything from spinets to harpsichords and eventually grand pianos. Going to be very interesting to see and hear the results!

-Silja

Spring is finally in Stockholm! During the dark winter months I’ve kept myself busy with my piano students, concerts and clothing projects.

I also did an interview at Sven Harry’s Art Museum with the supertalented journalist Jasmin Lindberg for Sveriges Radio. One and a half years ago I hosted four culture discussion programs for the same channel (SisuRadio) so talking on the radio felt like home. We were at a press viewing of the exhibition ”Secrets of Haute Couture”. Nothing inspires my own designs quite like being surrounded by beautiful works of art that also celebrate the technique and handcraft aspects of sewing and tailoring! Our interview is a part of the program ”Popula” and you can listen to it here. We talk about the exhibition, mainly in Finnish and partially in Swedish, and share our views on haute couture. I tell about my most challenging nightmare project, a dress with a simplistic design that I thought was going to be a breeze to make but was quite the opposite…

In the music circles things move at a quick pace now. I’ve started a duo with a long time chamber music partner, the amazing cellist Vincent Wistrand. Up until now we’ve only played together in bigger ensembles, so it’s both refreshingly new and at the same time reliable to play as a duo. We test-drove our program in Göteborg in February and more concerts are on the way, including the Finnish Church in Stockholm’s old town on the 24th of June.

Sadly, the musical that I was to do in collaboration with DramaKvarnen has been indefinitely postponed due to lack of resources. This is something culture workers often encounter, so as much of a disappointment it is, I’m hoping the musical will get funding in the near future. In the meantime I’ll keep my eyes open for similar projects, Stockholm is full of small independent theaters that produce high quality plays and musicals, it’s a world I’d like to explore and participate in in the future.

In the past I’ve often sent old concert snap shots to new collaborators when they ask if I have any artist pictures. I’m happy to finally have a better option for that! Thanks to my connections in the string quartet Rosa Kvartetten, I met the amazing harpist/photographer Justyna Krzyżanowska who took a few hundred pictures of me for personal and promotional use. Out of those, I’ve now uploaded a few to a new gallery section of my website.

I wanted the artist photos to reflect my personality so I chose a gorgeous industrial style café in Vasastan as the background. Instead of the shiny black Steinways we’re used to seeing in many pianists’ press photos, I relied on my Korg Tiny Piano as a prop. Of course, the shirt I’m wearing is designed and made by me. The materials are an old black college sweater and an oversized white shirt and the swan design is my take on Björk’s controversial dress worn at the Academy Awards in 2001. She ended up on the worst dressed- list, but I loved the look back then and apparently still do.

-Silja

Year 2017 ended with a bang. The start of December was one of the most intense weeks of my post-master's degree career. Just when I'd hoped for more gigs, all of a sudden I had 6 within a 10-day period. When things start moving it usually goes very fast. More contacts lead to more contacts, with more piano gigs there will be more piano gigs. It's a self-perpetuating cycle, and I love it!

The first gig was a pre-xmas mingel at the old reliable NAV. NAV is a place buzzing with creativity, you just waltz in and within 10 minutes you will have met an impro theatre leader, a  makeup artist, some of Nacka's brightest educators, environment activists, and a crazy artist who makes bar chair upholstery that looks like candy wrappers. They constantly organise events and the sky is the limit: doesn't matter if it's a climate change discussion, a concert or an art exhibition, within the walls of NAV anything is possible. Their piano sure isn't a Steinway grand, but the atmosphere and openness makes NAV a great venue even for classical music.

On December the 6th my home country Finland turned 100. To celebrate that, the Finnish church of Stockholm organised a bunch of events that were the main reason for my busy week. The first and biggest was a concert in Storkyrkan in the picturesque Old Town. I had the pleasure of working with big names, the established veterans, baritone Gabriel Suovanen and bass Esa Aapro, and the young talent from Operahögskolan, soprano Tessan Lehmussaari. Later the same day we had another gig with Tessan at Gustavsbergs Kyrka in Värmdö, where I'm also going to play on January the 27th.

The picture above is from Ljusets Kyrka where I had a solo piano concert on December the 8th. The church wanted a Finland- themed program for elderly locals with Finnish roots. The upcoming concert on January the 27th will also feature some of the same music, which makes it easier to prepare for it. I spent the rest of my busy week playing 2 background music gigs, one at an exclusive pre-xmas mingle and one at a retirement home.

More of this in 2018, please! I'm already well on the way there on the gig front. Now all I need is more sewing and design projects and I'm all set. Unfortunately a musical by Dramakvarnen I was supposed to do costumes for, got indefinitely postponed due to lack of resources, but we'll see what happens!

-Silja