SELECTED WORKS
String Quartet
An interdisciplinary work that captures four generations’ memories and stories from a landscape
Collaboration with Anne Naukkarinen
25'
(2025)
String Quartet is an interdisciplinary work by choreographer and visual artist Anne Naukkarinen, in which she captures four generations of her family’s memories and stories from the landscape of Pappilanlahti in Ruokolahti – a place where her maternal lineage has lived for over a hundred years. The work is based on interviews Naukkarinen conducted with her family members, from which she compiled a multi-voiced script.
Composer Leevi Räsänen translated the script into a composition for string quartet, titled maisema, muistuma, enne (landscape, reminiscence, omen). In his composition, Räsänen drew inspiration from the imagined presence of an ancient song woven into the landscape, and from the mist of memories. The contents of the script take on an auditory form in the composition – at times through the interpretations of individual musicians, at others as a shared family chorus. The work was premiered in the home of Naukkarinen’s grandmother, Kerttu Kukkurainen, overlooking Lake Saimaa and the Ruokolahti church.
In the piece, one family’s memories based on a site are woven into a sonic tapestry that stretches across decades. Broader developments in Finnish society – such as the structural transformation of rural areas – are juxtaposed with everyday, intimate moments like gardening or taking a dip in the lake, each rendered equally meaningful. Personal memories evolve into shared myths within the family, inevitably shaping how the constantly changing surrounding landscape is experienced.
Recording of the premiere performance in Ruokolahti:
Credits
Script and concept: Anne Naukkarinen
Stories in the script: Kerttu Kukkurainen, Helena Naukkarinen, Anne Naukkarinen, and Milja Suonio
Composition: Leevi Räsänen: maisema, muistuma, enne (2025)
Musicians: Aino Szalai (Violin I), Anna-Maria Huohvanainen (Violin II), Ida Kosonen (Viola), Katariina Selenius (Cello)
Visual artist: Saimi Suikkanen
Graphic design of the publication: Hanna Valle
Sound technique and recording: Gaia Music / Teemu Myyryläinen
Curator: Riikka Thitz
Production: Anne Naukkarinen, i dolci ry
In collaboration with: Municipality of Ruokolahti, South Karelia Artists' Association
Supported by: Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Karjalan Kulttuurirahasto
Leevi Räsänen’s work has been supported by the Kone Foundation.
THE TWO CHILDHOODS & HOODLUM
14' + 14'
(2022 & 2024)
sibling works for string quartet – to be performed separately, consecutively or within one programme
The two childhoods was premiered by the Savonlinna String Quartet at the PAUHU Contemporary Music Festival in Enonkoski, July 2022.
The two childhoods and Hoodlum were performed together for the first time in Leevi Räsänen's profile concert "Studying Gaze" by Uusinta Ensemble at the Helsinki Music Centre in September 2025.
The two childhoods is Leevi Räsänen's most performed work – having been performed at Finnish festivals such as What Ever Works! in Turku (2023), Kokonainen (2024), Tampering (2025) and recently also in the Nordic Music Days in Scotland (2024) and the World New Music Days in Portugal (2025). At the Nordic Music Days, the two childhoods was performed by the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists ensemble Chaos Quartet, and at the World New Music Days in Lisbon, by the soloist quartet of the Metropolitana Orchestra.
Movements:
1. white fog
2. trickling ink
3. what I don't remember, I needn't forget
Commissioned by the Savonlinna String Quartet & TEMA Quartet,
The composition of the two childhoods was supported byArts Council of South Savo under Arts Promotion Center Finland as well as the Paulo Foundation.
The composition of Hoodlum was supported by the Arts Promotion Center Finland.
Hoodlum
the two childhoods
The two childhoods emerges from personal need to heal. Those who have experienced school violence know the profound and long-term consequences of when just simple words become weapons. Having thought for a long time, that the bullying I experienced during my childhood would’ve made me stronger – a common way of submerging trauma – I realized that I had survived it by repressing almost all memories altogether. This piece aims to address that memory-mush, the lack of connecting points in the process of trying to understand one's own past. By using a folk-song-like tune from a choir conductor who once lived in my home town as material for the piece, I establish a new connection to my roots, but on my terms. Incidentally, this piece was composed when I was living in Glasgow – furthest from my Eastern-Finnish roots that I’ve ever lived.
Hoodlum (2024) is the second part of a whole consisting of two string quartets: the two childhoods
(2022) and Hoodlum. The two works deal with the transition from childhood to adolescence. While
the two childhoods aimed to grasp lost, hazy memories and sought understanding, Hoodlum fantasizes
about wilder, alternative youths.
"Middle fingers and kicked stones. Unrestrained energy erupting from within, electric guitar roars.
Caution thrown to the wind. Time to make some noise."
PISCES – MIME
30'
(2023, rev. 2025)
concerto for guitar and chamber orchestra
Premiere of revised version for guitar & orchestra at the 79th Ung Nordisk Musik Festival in Helsinki, 27.8.2025.
Teuvo Taimioja, guitar, Kasmir Uusitupa, conductor, Tapiola Sinfonietta.
Premiere at the Kitara Nova -festival in Helsinki, 24.9.2023.
Teuvo Taimioja, guitar, Elisar Riddelin, conductor, Helsinki Chamber Orchestra: Kanerva Mannermaa, concertmaster, David Seixas, II violin, Alexander Pozdniakovas, viola, Laura Martin, cello, Martti Genevet, double bass, Robert Tobin, flute, Petros Andreadis, clarinet, Eliise Tani, french horn, Otto Korhonen, trumpet.
Commissioned by Teuvo Taimioja
Instrumentation: 1010 [+picc] 1100 solo: amplified classical guitar, table guitar prepared with alligator clips, strings 11111 (or 44321). In addition, the wind and brass player and the soloist play tuned Whistle Pop -lollipops (can be substituted with Slide Whistes) and paper sheets. The conductor also operates an electric paper shredder.
Movements:
I. Opposite forces
II. The age of pisces
III. Mime
IV. Coda
Video recording of the premiere of the ensemble version of the work can be found in the gallery below.
Video material © Leevi Räsänen & Teuvo Taimioja
Recording from Ung Nordisk Musik 2025 with
Teuvo Taimioja, guitar, Kasmir Uusitupa, conductor & Tapiola Sinfonietta. Recording & by Armi Lampela & Julius Johansson.
We are about two thousand years deep in the age of pisces now. My fascination with astrology lies in how it can suggest people to find meanings and causalities in their day-to-day. The age of pisces is said to be characterised by opposite forces: light and dark, life and death, forward and backwards. For me, this piece, composed and performed during the age of pisces, is also about my past and present. While composing it, I kept reminding myself of that same childlike, naive excitement of making a sound and making it again and again… a habit that gave me a bit of a loud reputation as a kid.
BRAIN SHAKE
11'
(2024)
concerto grosso for baroque quartet (flauto traverso, baroque violin, harpsichord, viola da gamba) and chamber orchestra
Premiered at the Brinkhall Soi Festival in Turku on 13.7.2024. Æstus Ensemble, orchestra Refugium Musicum, cond. József Hars.
Instrumentation: 2222 [+picc, +ehn., +bcl.] 2200, traverso, brq.vln., hpschd., vl.d.gamba, strings 66442
Commissioned by Brinkhall Soi
The composition of this work was supported by the Arts Promotion Center Finland.
Recording from the premiere performance:
My works are rarely explicitly descriptive. I think of them more as thought maps, networks of associations. The same applies to the process of creating my works. I collect and write texts, associations, sentences, and poems on large yellow sheets of paper, and I draw images on them to figure out what is about to land on me. My works do not offer ready-made truths; they function as lenses into our reality. I see them as empathetic spaces into which the listeners can freely enter, move around in, and form their own interpretations of.
This work begins from the brain – two hemispheres. The shape of the brain resembles the lungs; both are vital. In my mind, there was a sort of ”instrumental vocalise”, which can be heard in the first minutes of the work, performed by the concertino, the soloist group:
“In the operating room
they had booked a new chief surgeon
the brain was shaking
and the patient aching
the chief surgeon, new
with their blade askew
had thoughts flying
almost trembling and crying
having not slept
the nitrile glove grip kept
from cutting amiss”
The words of the opening lines can be heard alongside, and imagined with, melodic gestures played by the traverso, which is a baroque flute, and the baroque violin. There is a sense of danger in the operating room; everything could co wrong with the smallest mistake. What if the surgeon had slept poorly? What if, on a whim, one took the brain in their hands and shook it? Sometimes I think each of us, myself included, could use a little shaking.
The concerto grosso is an old musical form defined by a division into two roles: the more soloistic concertino, a smaller group of instruments, and on the other hand, the orchestra, the ripieno. In Brain Shake, they represent old and new: the concertino consists of baroque instruments tuned in baroque pitch, while the ripieno consists of modern instruments tuned normally. The difference between them is slightly more than a semitone, which creates a significant tonal contrast (dark–bright) between the instrument groups but also produces a subtle wobble in the overall sound. This wobble is emphasized in the work with glissandi, or slides. The material played by the concertino can be thought of as an ancient stream, whose emerging harmonies the orchestra emphasizes, amplifies, continues, or interrupts.
In the work of a composer, vast amounts of material are inevitably left unused: sketches, texts, reflections, musical fragments that never found their place, and harmonic ideas that did not work as intended. This material, largely consisting of notes, is not the easiest to understand, but what about text drafts? I often gather the most essential and recurring themes into a text, through which one can delve deeper into the network of associations in the work. Brain Shake reflects on the relationship between the individual and the community, on technology and systems constructed by humans. Are we all on the way to becoming one big brain shake?
kevyttä yläpilveä
matkalla pakoon aivot mädättävää kaupallista soopaa
jota minäkin rakastan
jotain hyvin kevyttä hyvin painavassa
kuinka paljon vettä virtaa joessa joka päivä
minne kuivuneet lehdet tippuvat
kaikki
on aivojen tulkintaa
näenkö samat värit kuin kaikki muut?
kuvitteelliset aivot
pilleriä poskeen
a chemical brain
aivoni pullistelee
olen nero
olen idiootti
olen lehti virrassa
En halua olla lehti virrassa!
Kehitän robottiaivot.
Mutta minä vihaan johtoja.
Joka päivä kymmeniä johtoja! Kesämökilläkin johtoja.
vesi virtaa
vapaus, kahleet
informaatiotulva
pakoooooooooon
STUDYING GAZE
20'
2024
musical performance for flutist, saxophonist, percussionist and guitarist
Premiered at the Hietsu is Happening! -concert series in Helsinki, 4.12.2024, by Kaaos Ensemble.
Martta Jämsä, flute mouthpiece and objects
Anna-Sofia Anttonen, baritone saxophone, saxophone mouthpiece and objects
Jerry Piipponen, percussion
Janne Malinen, guitar and objects
Commissioned by Kaaos Ensemble.
The composition of the work was supported by the Kone Foundation.
Photos © Tuomas Kettunen & Leevi Räsänen
Kaaos Ensemble performs Studying Gaze
Helsinki Music Centre, Black Box
September 11, 2025
Studying Gaze is a piece of paper...
Central to this piece, is the idea of gaze as an act containing the viewer’s position, that creates hierarchies and meanings between the looker and the one being looked at.
And of course, this same setup is repeated in a performance: you look at me, but do you notice that I’m looking right back at you? Do you see me?
LIGHT FLOWERS
8,5'
2023
for light design and brass quintet
Premiered at the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra's late night chamber music on 9.2.2024 at the Helsinki Music Centre and Yle Areena.
Miikka Saarinen & Lénard Heugen, trumpets
Jukka Harju, french horn
Line Johannesen, trombone
Joel Wendelin, tuba
Commissioned by the Finnish Broadcasting Company
Kevytkenkäisiä kukkia. Lihansyöjäkukkia. Kaiken elollisen alleen peittäviä robottikukkia. Laserruusuja, puhkeavia metallipintaisia tekokrookuksia, aurinkopaneelikukkia. Auringonkukkia. Kukoistavia hömppäputkia, rakastavia, paahteen kuihduttamia kukkia.
Valo kukkii, kukoistava valo. Valaistunut kulo, valkea. Yhdistyvät sinisiksi, sinertyvät yhteen, punertuvat, kaartuvat kauaksi. Pimeydessä ohittavan auton perävalot. Sataa.
Kevyt kantaa, painava ottaa vastaan. Raskas kantaa, keveä antaa pois. Antaa kaikkien kukkien kukkia.
Taas muutaman kuukauden päästä narsissit puskevat kylmästä maasta.
© Leevi Räsänen, 2023
"Decadent flowers, carnivorous flowers, robot flowers that smother all animate life, laser roses, budding metal-plated artificial crocuses, solar panel flowers, sunflowers. Let a thousand flowers bloom. In a few months’ time the daffodils will be pushing through the cold earth."
TUNNEL VISIONS
Putkinäkyjä
10'
(2023)
for symphony orchestra
Work not publicly premiered. Written for a workshop with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kristian Sallinen.
Orchestration: 2222 [+picc, +blc., +cbsn.] 4331 12 hp pno strings 12.10.8.6.4.
Movements:
1. 1st vision – Ensimmäinen näky
2. 2nd vision – Toinen näky
Interview © Yle, photos © Minna Hatinen / Sibelius-Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki & Leevi Räsänen, videos © Leevi Räsänen
MIDI demo of the work:
Tunnel Visions is based on the concept of social bubbles. What defines each individual's social bubble, and how oblivious are we to everything outside its confines? This holds true for nearly everyone: we all possess our own secluded bubbles that prove incredibly challenging to breach or perceive beyond. Naturally, we tend to seek company where our thoughts find affirmation, and where conflicts don't continually arise. Within the piece, this is manifested through scenarios where various elements and instrument combinations engage in dynamics of concealing or intentionally "making space," occasionally joined by a larger assembly of performers. The composition relies on instrumental variation, with the same thematic "opinion" recurring in diverse guises throughout the 10-minute piece. Experientially, these variations are wholly distinct, and without focusing on the pitch material — often not the foremost layer of perception for concert audiences — this might go unnoticed. The reiteration of the same argument is semblance. The work delves into the equilibrium between true diversity and a singular perspective. More often than not, just one word may result in complete silencing.
OUTOLIINI
45'
(2023)
5-channel sound composition and sound design in Laura Jantunen's work Outoliini
(Oddling)
Premiered in Helsinki 13.-18.2.2023, 5 performances.
Outoliini (Oddling) looks at the moments in close relationships (family, friends, lovers, partners) where the societally constructed human in us steps into the background and enjoyment of being with a loved one emerges. In Outoliini we concentrated on non-sexual encounters. This limitation gave space to the naive, playful, flirtatious, and more-than-human forms of moving. (Laura Jantunen)
You can read my own thoughts about the piece in the first picture in the gallery below.
Working group:
Choreography:Laura Jantunen, performers: Pauliina Sjöberg, Pääsky Miettinen & Laura Jantunen, composition: Leevi Räsänen, light design: Ilmari Pesonen, scenography: Miina Kujala, dramaturge: Pipsa Enqvist, costume design & rya: Laura Jantunen, performer in rehearsals and voice coach: Sofia Keto-Tokoi, voices in the recordings: Sofia Keto-Tokoi, Pauliina Sjöberg, Iiris Miettinen, Leevi Räsänen & Laura Jantunen, poster: Sirkku Rosi
Photos © Jere Aalto.
Musics from Outoliini
"Kainoliini" (The shyling)
"Nelipäinen rotta" (Four-headed rat)
"Kissat valossa" (Cats in the light)
VIIMEINEN LAUTTA
20'
(2023)
chamber orchestra
Chamber opera to the libretto by Taika Martikainen. Premiere performances in Helsinki 20.-21.4.2023.
Composition: Leevi Räsänen
Libretto: Taika Martikainen
Direction: Jaakko Kiljunen
Concept: Taika Martikainen, Leevi Räsänen, Jaakko Kiljunen, Wilhelmína Tómasdóttir
Conductor: Elisar Riddelin
Maria: Wilhelmína Tómasdóttir
Gloria: Aleksiina Turtiainen
Choir: Aleksiina Turtiainen, Maija Turunen, Sakari Topi, Yolanda Harding
Piano: Tsotne Sidamonidze
Accordion: Kalle Siitonen
I cello: Otto Nuoranne
II cello: Karret Sepp
Instrumentation: acc., pno., vlc., db., chx (any fach, min. 3 singers), 2 high voice soloists. Optional version for cello instead of double bass.
Teoksesta
Eräässä varhaisessa tapaamisessa teoskonseptin suunnitteluun osallistuneen työryhmän kanssa, aloimme muistella kaikkia häitä, joissa olemme elämämme aikana käyneet. Totesimme häissä olevan jotain harvinaisen yleistä ja jaettua – että se olisi ainakin samasta kulttuuriympäristöstä tuleville ihmisille sellainen asia, josta kaikilla on jokin mielipide ja kokemus (vähän niinkuin inttijutut ehkä ovat joillekin). Tosin suurimmaksi osaksi kultaisista muistoista koostuvista inttijutuista poiketen huomasimme, että häihin liittyy valtavasti eri ihmisten ristiriitaisia odotuksia, historian painolastia ja konventioita – kenen juhlat häät ovat?
Emme halunneet nostaa pääosaan morsianta vaan nimenomaan jonkin näistä häihin liittyvistä, usein huonosti yhteiskunnan odotuksiin vastaavista henkilöistä. Häät ovat rakkauden juhlan ja kaiken mukavan ohella osa patriarkaalisen yhteiskunnan perinnettä, joka näkyy vahvasti vielä tämän päivän hääjuhlissa. Oopperassa keskiöön on nostettu morsian Glorian lapsuudenystävä, kaaso Maria joka on nuoruuden jälkeen ajautunut kauemmaksi Gloriasta. Glorian poikettua nopeasti stressaamassa myöhäisillan viimeisistä juhlahuolista, pääsemme seuraamaan Marian sisäistä kamppailua hänen ja Glorian välisestä ihmissuhteesta sekä yhteiskunnan asettamista hääjuhlassa pintaan nousevista odotuksista ja epävarmuuksista.
Libretto
Gloria: Maria! Maria avaa! Paljonko sä oot juonut? Ole hyvä tule ulos. Viimeinen lautta lähtee. Täällä on vessajono ja catering väittää, että tiskaus kuuluu muka meille.
Vessajono: Maria, Maria, Maria! Mene juhlasalin takaosaan cateringin tykö ja lupaa omin käsin tiskata kaikki, kaikki, kaikki!
Maria: Kuskaa te saatanan määkijät housuun. Ja Gloria mä join vain yhden pullon yhden tähden jallua. Pohjat on vielä. Miestenvessassa oli jallu ruusumyrttikorissa. Naistenvessassa oli korissa tamponeita. Mä istuin koko päivän sen sun yhen sukulaispellen vieressä, jota ihan syystä häpeät, ja se päti että nieriä kuuluu lohikalojen heimoon ja nämä ilotulitteet muistuttaa hänen ejakulaatioitaan.
Vihkimaljan join. Mut mä sanon. Sehän oli vitun kallista vintagesampanjaa, mutta kuselta se maistu. Miestenvessan lattiasta tuli oikeen teiän vihkimalja mieleen.
Vessajono: O-ou! O-ou! O-ou! Ulos! Ulos! Ulos!
Maria: Ulos en tule ennen viimeistä lauttaa. Mä vaan juon ja laulan ja juon ja laulan ja juon ja laulan ja juon. Sitten juoksen lauttaan, yö on kylmä ja meri on tyyni, mutta mulla on lämmin ja villi olo. Gloria muistatko kun joskus bileissä mentiin piiloon astiakomeroon juomaan valkkaria ja supisemaan ja joku hakkas ovea ja huus Maria, Maria avaa? Miksi susta tuli timanttisormusnainen? Onko kivaa saada isoa munaa ja sata neliötä Töölöstä?
Vessajono: Sinä syntinen säkki, sinä langennut nainen, sinä Magdalan Maria! Olet kivi ystäväsi kengässä, kanto ystäväsi kaskessa, mutka ystäväsi matkassa! Vaikene, sinä känninen, kadotettu kala!
Maria: Gloria, pullo on tyhjä. Onko se kateutta jos ei halua samaa kuin kaverilla on? En ole ollut sulle reilu. Kun kerrankin voitat jossain mä vaan seison vieressä vittuilemassa. Gloria mä oon pahoillani. Gloria menitkö sä jo. Gloria.
About the work
In one of the early meetings with the working group, we began reminiscing about all the weddings we had attended over the course of our lives. We realized that there is something unusually universal and shared about weddings – that for people from the same cultural background, at least, they are something everyone has some opinion and experience of (a bit like army stories might be for some). Unlike army stories, which are mostly made up of golden memories, we noticed that weddings are loaded with conflicting expectations, historical burden, and conventions – whose celebration are weddings, really? Who are they for?
We did not want to put the bride in the spotlight, but rather someone connected to the wedding, someone who might not quite live up to society’s expectations… Weddings, in addition to being celebrations of love and joy, are also part of a patriarchal tradition that still strongly shapes weddings today. In the opera, the focus is on the bride Gloria’s childhood friend, Maria, the maid of honor, who has drifted apart from Gloria since their youth. After Gloria briefly appears, stressed about the final details of the late-night party, we follow Maria’s inner struggle with her relationship to Gloria as well as with the expectations and insecurities that surface in the context of a wedding.
Libretto
(Translated by Leevi Räsänen)
Gloria: Maria! Maria, open the door! How much have you had to drink? Please, come out. The last ferry is about to leave. There’s a toilet queue here, and I’m freaking out because catering is insisting the washing up is somehow our job!
Toilet queue: Maria, Maria, Maria! Go to the back of the hall, to catering, and promise to wash everything, everything, everything with your very own hands!
Maria: Piss your pants, you damn bleating sheep. And Gloria, I only drank one bottle of One-Star Jallu. There are still a few drops left. There was Jallu in a rose-myrtle basket in the men’s room. In the women’s room, the basket had tampons. I sat the whole day next to that one clown of a relative of yours, the one you’re rightly ashamed of, and he went on about how char belongs to the salmon family and how these fireworks reminded him of his ejaculations.
I drank the wedding toast. But let me tell you: sure, it was fucking expensive vintage champagne, but it tasted like piss. The men’s bathroom floor reminded me exactly of your wedding toast.
Toilet queue: Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Out! Out! Out!
Maria: I won’t come out before the last ferry. I’ll just drink and sing and drink and sing and drink and sing and drink. Then I’ll run to the ferry – the night is cold, and the sea is calm, but I’ll feel warm and wild. Gloria, do you remember when at some party we hid in the dish closet to drink white wine and whisper, and someone banged on the door and shouted, “Maria, Maria, open the door”? Why did you have to become such a diamond-ring woman? Must be nice to get big cock and a hundred square meters in Töölö?
Toilet queue: You sinful sack, you fallen woman, you Mary of Magdala! You are a stone in your friend’s shoe, a stump in your friend’s forest, a bend in your friend’s road! Be silent, you drunken, lost fish!
Maria: Gloria, the bottle is empty. Is it envy if you don’t want the same things your friend has? I haven’t been fair to you. When you finally succeed at something, I just stand there beside you, giving you shit. Gloria, I’m sorry. Gloria, did you already leave? Gloria.
ETKOT
4'
(2022)
for chamber orchestra
Premiered at Avanti! Summer Sounds in Porvoo 2.7.2022, Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, cond. József Hárs
The money maker of the classical music world. I’m serving you 100% opulent, quirky and perverse Beethoven realness cut up and glued back together to form ETKOT, the wildest and steamiest pre-party you’ve ever experienced.
Instrumentation: bsn., solo fl., solo vln., 6 vlns., 2 vlas., 2 vlc., cb.
The composition of the work was supported by the Paulo Foundation and Arts Promotion Center Finland.
ETKOT for chamber orchestra was composed using a kind of paper collage technique, with material drawn from two of Beethoven’s piano works – the Waldstein Sonata and the Rondo A Capriccio (Op. 129), also known as “Rage over a lost penny.”
The collages were transformed into a score through successive iterations. Below, I describe the stages of the work’s creation:
1. Printing the musical material
2. Going through the material by playing it, circling interesting passages
3. Cutting the selected material into shorter fragments, usually a few quarter notes in length
4. Creating collages through random selection – the fragments were drawn by lot and arranged on paper into the desired composition, first placed face down. Afterwards, the fragments were turned the right way up in their original orientation.
5. Gluing the material into place in its original position
6. Searching for coherent structures, adding bar lines and re-rhythmizing (e.g. inserting rests, creating irregular divisions or additional beaming)
7. Writing in additional voices by hand
8. Transcribing into a condensed 6-staff score: at this stage, rhythms were finalized, and graphic errors (such as upside-down notes or mistakes in the original notation) were incorporated, for example by turning them into microtones).
9. Orchestrating for the ensemble based on the condensed score, repeating and shaping material, and determining tempi and performance markings
DON'T TELL MAMA.
6'20''
(2022)
for string orchestra, harp, celesta and percussion
Premiered at the 70th anniversary concert of the late composer Kaija Saariaho on 15.10.2022, in the Concert Hall of the Helsinki Music Centre.
Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, cond. Aliisa Neige Barriere.
Commissioned by Musiikkitalon Urut Soimaan
The composing of the work was supported by Teosto and Arts Promotion Center Finland.
Don’t tell mama was commissioned by Musiikkitalon Urut Soimaan ry for the late composer Kaija Saariaho’s 70th anniversary concert at the Helsinki Music Centre in October 2022. I knew the rest of the concert program from the very beginning, and it was quite a high-pressure situation – a huge concert broadcast by Yle, with Finland’s top ensembles Avanti! and Zagros performing – and on top of that, the rest of the program consisted of Kaija’s violin concerto and flute concerto, between which my 5-minute piece would be placed. I knew I could in no way compete with Kaija’s music – so I had to do something completely different.
I latched onto the idea of celebration and thought about what celebrating means to me. Seventy years – so, big celebrations are in order! I began drawing influences from nightclubs, especially music that makes you want to dance. The piece can be seen as a continuation of my work ETKOT (meaning, PREPARTY), from which a few musical elements are borrowed; in addition, the core material consists of quotations from Madonna’s Vogue, Britney Spears’s Toxic, and Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head. Furthermore, in the accelerating bars 80–87 there is a special homage to Kaija, one of my greatest female icons (alongside the aforementioned ones, of course…), as the first violins play rapid syncopated passages to which one could sing along: “Madonna, Rihanna, Kaija…”. And naturally, when Kaija’s moment arrives, the celesta, harp, and percussion awaken in otherworldly shimmer.
RIEVDAN
12'
(2023)
for yoik, clarinet, piano, violin and cello
Premiered at the Juhls’ Silver Gallery in Kautokeino, Norway, as part of the Hetta Music Festival, April 8, 2023.
The work was co-composed with Hildá Länsman.
Performers:
Hildá Länsman – yoik
Robert Ek – clarinet
Hannu Alasaarela – piano
Kasmir Uusitupa – violin
Saara Särkimäki – cello
Commissioned by the Hetta Music Days.
The work was composed with the support of the Sibelius Fund of the Society of Finnish Composers.
Photos © Anu Jormalainen and Leevi Räsänen.
Hildá: “Ensimmäiset pilkahdukset teokseen syntyivät kun pohdiskelin unissani joiun muodossa entisaikojen tapoja kommunikoida luonnon kanssa. Joiku on ollut yhtenä tapana kunnioittaa alueita ja sen avulla siunattiin oma tekeminen luonnon parissa.
Tämä teos temaattisesti lähtee vanhan ajan siunauksesta luonnon kanssa elämiseen ja toimimiseen, jonka jälkeen matka jatkuu nykypäivän ajatuksiin. Meidän ympäristömme ja kulttuurit ovat isossa muutoksessa. Jokin tuossa muutoksessa on hyvin tarpeellista ja kaunista, jonka kääntöpuolena on myös isot haasteet ja kaipaus menneeseen. Kysymykset jäävät leijailemaan, miten ottaa tulevat muutokset vastaan ja voidaanko perimätietoa vielä soveltaa uudessa ajassa?”
Leevi: ”Hildá toi yhteen ensimmäisistä tapaamisistamme muutoksen, jonkinlaisen käänteen yhtenä aihevaihtoehdoista. Minulle pysähtyminen ja rauhoittuminen paikalleen näyttäytyvät sen vastavoimana ja aloin ajatella, miten teos voisi heijastella tarvetta tai keinoja pysähtyä ajassamme, jossa meitä revitään eri suuntiin ja kaikki ympärillämme on jatkuvassa murroksessa. Teoksen lopussa musiikki kirjaimellisesti jäätyy paikalleen, jää hiipuen jankkaamaan omaa rataansa ympäröivän maailmankaikkeuden jatkaessa täsmälleen samoin kuin joitakin minuutteja aikaisemmin.
Työstäessämme teosta ja jakaessamme ideoitamme ja materiaalejamme, vaikutuin Hildán lähettämien aihioiden rikkaudesta ja runsaudesta. Joiku kannattelee itseään täydellisesti sellaisenaan. Tuntui haastavalta lähteä säveltämään sen rinnalle, ja siksi teoksessa kaikki lähteekin Hildán materiaalista, joka välillä instrumenttikvartetin käsittelyssä alkaa elää omaa elämäänsä ja välillä taas yhdistyy dialogiin Hildán joikaamisen kanssa.”
Hildá: The first ideas of this piece came to me when, in my dreams, I was thinking about the ways of the old to communicate with nature through the form of yoik. Yoik has been a way to honor places, and through it, one could bless one’s own actions while working with nature.
Thematically, this work begins with an ancient blessing for living and acting together with nature, after which the journey continues into today’s thoughts. Our environment and cultures are undergoing a great transformation. Something in this change is very necessary and beautiful, yet at the same time it brings major challenges and a longing for the past. The questions linger: how should we receive the changes to come, and can ancestral knowledge still be applied in this new time?
Leevi: In one of our first meetings, Hildá brought up the theme of change, some kind of turning point, as one of the possible subjects. For me, stillness and calming down, staying in one place, appeared as its counterforce, and I began to think about how the piece could reflect the need or ways to pause in our time, when we are being pulled in many directions and everything around us is in constant flux. At the end of the work, the music quite literally freezes in place, fading into a repetitive loop of its own, while the surrounding universe continues exactly as it did a few minutes earlier.
As we worked on the piece and shared our ideas and materials, I was struck by the richness and abundance of the sketches Hildá sent me. A yoik carries itself perfectly on its own. It felt challenging to begin composing alongside it, and that’s why in this work everything grows from Hildá’s material, sometimes taking on a life of its own in the hands of the instrumental quartet, and at other times merging again into dialogue with Hildá’s yoiking.
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF COMMITTING TO THIS
17'
a diary of december 2019 for three guitars
(2019)
Premiered at the Kitara Nova -festival in Helsinki in 2020. Henrik Holmström, Antero Pellikka and Teuvo Taimioja, guitar.
The work represented Finland at the Ung Nordisk Musik -festival in Aarhus, Denmark in 2021.
Commissioned by the Kitara Nova -festival.
The composition of this work was supported by Teosto.
The impossibility of committing to this depicts, in many different ways, the difficulty of committing that arises from recurring and persistent depression, affecting all areas of life. In the piece, guitar preparation using sticks plays a major role, with the constant placement and removal of these objects forming a performative layer within the work.
Comprising of seven miniatures, the piece also structurally reflects its subject: whenever something begins, it is cut off again under a new theme. While composing the work, I created dozens of short sections, each about a minute long.
My practice was to compose with a journal-like approach: one section per day over approximately twenty days. At the time, I was depressed, and through this method, I experienced each day the sense that I had accomplished something. This is one of the aspects I have often referred to when discussing the psychological demands of composing.
When I was completely unable to compose - as in, to write notes -, I instead spent much time mechanically tabulating and categorizing the pitch layers and soundscapes produced by the prepared guitar, as I could do nothing else. When I felt better, I recorded a lot of my own playing on my poor-quality guitar and met with commissioners. My ideal was often a garage-band-like, slightly out-of-tune guitar sound, as heard in, for example, the works of the band Ahkerat simpanssit, which can also be heard in this piece. The work is also my first large-scale piece composed very intuitively, in which the same themes intersect almost imperceptibly, freely varying from one section to another. Over time, this approach has become a permanent part of my process: I spend a lot of time with my material until I know it so well that I can rely solely on intuition in the act of writing.