This summer's music festivals, updating the braid- gallery and getting artsy at Konstfack

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...

courtesy of the 2018 Mänttä Music Festival

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