Welcome to join the Sibelius Academy Friends Association

At the last membership event of the spring on 21.5.2024, we had the opportunity to interview oboist Aale Lindgren, ocarina artist Leena Pietilä and tenor Petri Bäckström in the premises of Lallukka Artists' Home. We had a lot of laughs at the event and we heard Aale and Leena play, for example, Sibelius on ocarinos. Petri also sang O sole mio for us in Italian and Finnish. In the pictures Petri Bäckström and Aale Lindgren and the members.

On Monday 8.4.2024, the Sibelius Academy Opera performed The Marriage of Figaro in the Sonore Hall of the Helsinki Music Centre. Also Soikoon! ry members were invited to the event. Before the event, pianist and correpetitor Kristian Attila talked about practicing the opera. He had invited two soloists to perform in the second casting: Haven Honerman (Cherubino) and Nataniels Simha (Figaro). They were interviewed by our chairman Paiju Tyrväinen.

In Angelicum Hall on Tuesday March 19, 2024, Jean-Baptiste Barrière (Kaija Saariaho's spouse) told the members of the association about computer-aided composing. Aliisa Neige Barrière performed her father's music, which, together with a performance recorded on a computer, formed an impressive whole. After the performance, we relaxed with sparkling wine in a cosy warm atmosphere. In the picture next to Aliisa is her boyfriend, Aku Sorensen.

On Saturday February 10. 2024, the choir of the Sibelius Academy, soloists and baroque dancers performed at the Helsinki Ritarihuone the opera King Arthur composed by Henry Purcell. The music for the performance was conducted by Justin Doyle and directed by Tuuli Lindeberg, who was interviewed by Chairman Paiju Tyrväinen before the performance.

On Saturday 25.11.2023, skilled students of the Sibelius Academy performed Michael Tippett's unique oratorio A Child of Our Time. The performance by three choirs, the soloists, the Sibelius Academy Symphony Orchestra and conductor Nils Schweckendiek was memorable. Before the concert, we had the possibility to meet two soloists of the evening, Hanna Hasu and Okko Lakka. Our board member Carita Holmström interviewed them.

On Friday 13.10.2023, before the Coronation of Poppea performed by the Sibelius Academy Opera School, we met correpetitor Liisa Pimiä. We had invited the members of Soikoon! association to this event, and there were plenty of them. Their chairman Jari Harmoinen briefly told about Soikoon! and Paiju Tyrväinen about the Friends of the Sibelius Academy.

10.6.2023 we spent the day at the Musik vid havet festival. At first, we listened to Johanna Almark's and Maija Mannila's Jazz'n'Gå concert and Believe in the Future! panel discussion. After lunch, we visited the grounds of Fagervik Manor and got inside a private chapel on the manor's lands, where organist Anders Storbacka played his own arrangements of the summer song (suvivirsi) on the chapel's organ positive, which was commissioned in 1763. After a cup of coffee, we moved to the home of our member, Eeva Pinomaa, to enjoy sparkling wine and explore the works of visual artist and musician Jukka Uljas. The day's highlight was the meeting with the festival's artistic director, Jan Söderblom, before the evening's Dear Seasons concert. And all this in really beautiful summer weather.

On 2.9.2022 we had the opportunity to meet composer Kaija Saariaho and the Between production team in a pre-performance discussion in the Almi Hall foyer.

17.11.2021 Visit to the Academy of Fine Arts’ new main building Mylly together with the Friends of the Academy of Fine Arts. Here, Emilia Lajunen and Suvi Oksala are shown performing. Featured are also the chair of the Sibelius Academy Friends Association, Dean Hanna Johansson as well as the secretaries of the two Friends’ associations Kikka Österlund and Eija Ibatullin.

12.10.2021 Réka Szilvay and Heini Kärkkäinen performed at the concert Brahms avec Bartók, held at the Helsinki Music Centre’s Camerata hall. Associate board member Tuula Kotilainen interviewed the artists after the concert. Chair Paiju Tyrväinen gave them small thank-you gifts.