This year, our festival is mostly virtual, but fortunateluy the Corona situation in Ostrobothnia and Finland is under control and we are able to invite a limited amount of audience to our concerts. The number of people allowed at the different concert sites varies from 20 seats to a couple of hundred. We still ask the audience to note that the concerts are filmed with a fairly large apparatus and several cameras and this can affect the visibility and make it difficult to concentrate on the music.

If you want to guarantee your seat at the concerts, please book at info@korsholmmusicfestival.fi or by calling us on 040 833 2022. We have no tickets for the concerts, except for Laihia Church, where tickets cost 20 € and are for sale via www.netticket.fi. Programmes are for sale at each concert for 10 €.

Note! Check out our info regarding Corona security at our concerts here.

We allow a limited amount of seats for the following concerts:

28.7. Evening Music - Appassionata
29.7. Opening Concert - Note! No more seats left!

30.7. Finnish violin music from the 20s
31.7 Young musicians & Back to the twenties! 

1.8. Beethoven & the twenties!

2.8. Young musicians

3.8. Total Chamber Music Mania!

4.8. The magic of cello

5.8. Closing Concert

Korsholm Music Festival is opening up our concerts for a restricted limit of audience, thanks to the good Corona situation in Finland right now. 

We have taken extra measures to ensure that your concert visit is safe and secure.

Before the concert:
Our staff will greet our audience to ensure that we all keep a healthy distance from each other. We will have programmes for sale before the concerts, but we only accept card payments. Contact surfaces and door handles are dicinfected before and during the concert according to the authorities' instructions.

During the concert:
The requirements are to keep 1-2 meters distance in the audience, therefore the audience will sit on chairs placed at a good distance from each other. In the churches with several benches at intervals.

After the concert:
To avoid unnecessary queuing after the concert, our staff will instruct how the audience leaves the concert hall. 

When you come to Korsholm Music Festival's concert halls 2020:
- Stay at home if you feel sick, have short of breath or cough - our concerts will be livestreamed home to you on the couch!
- Remember the distance to the next person, 1.5 - 2 meters
- Groups in the same household may sit together
- Wait to be admitted to the hall, queue from a distance, do not rush!
- Remember hand hygiene, use hand disinfection - it is in place!
- If you want a mask, take one!
- If you cough, do it in a disposable handkerchief or in the armpit!

We have instructed the City Hall's cleaning staff to continuously disinfect contact surfaces such as handles, handrails, lift buttons and armrests before and after all concerts. Our entire staff has also committed to maintaining good hand hygiene according to the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare's instructions.

The tickets for the concert in Laihia Church are now for sale at www.netticket.fi/sellon-taikaa! Laihia Church has wide walls and great acoustics, so it is a perfect place to invite the audience to hear live music in a live concert space. On Tuesday evening, Total Cello Ensemble, a chamber music ensemble founded at the Sibelius Academy by six top cellists, are performing at Laihela Church. The programme include everything from classic gems by Arvo Pärt to South American rhythms by Heitor Villa-Lobos. In addition to classical music, we will also get to listen to popular music by Lasse Mårtenson, Unto Mononen, Adele and Metallica (not to mention that Hannu Kiiski was a teacher of Apocalyptica’s Eicca Toppinen at the Sibelius Academy). You don’t have to go far to experience the summer’s hottest and most cultivating show!

This year we are live streaming seven concerts from Vaasa and Korsholm, three from Stockholm, Sweden and four concerts will be held live with a restricted audience limit. The links for the live streams will be published on our homepage and in our social media during the festivalweek. For the concerts with an audience, we are following the estrictions and recommendations given by the authorities. More information about the arrangements will be published on our website shortly.

Korsholm Music Festival 2020 will be a bit different, but is not completely cancelled. The festival will be live streaming some concerts. From 1.8. some concerts will be performed live and in front of an audience, if the recommendations from the government allow so. The musicians and the audience health is the highest priority to us. We will keep you updated on our homepage and on our social media. 

The concert In company with the Archduke will be streamed live from Stockholm 15.4. at 19.00 finnish time.
The link to the live stream will later be updated on our Facebook page, Instagram and hompage.

In company with the Archduke
Wed 15.4 at 19.00 

Amanda trio
Cecilia Zilliacus, violin
Kati Raitinen, cello
Bengt Forsberg, piano
Miriam Forsberg, recitation 

Marcelle de Manziarly: Pianotrio (1921
Lera Auerbach: ”Lonely Suite” Ballet for a lonely violinist for soloviolin (2002)
Anna Clyne: ”Rest These Hands” for solo cello (2010)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano trio, Op. 97, The Archduke  (1810 -1811)

LINK: updating

According to the information we have now about the Covid-19 virus, Korsholm Music Festival will be held as planned 27.7.-5.8.2020. The concert 15.4. "In company with the Archduke" will be cancelled. The arrangements for the summer festival will continue as planned for the time being. We continue to follow the directions given by the authorities and will update on our social media if changes occur. Take care of yourselves and others!

Ticket release to all of our concerts today 18.2. at 12.00 and the entire concert programme is now published on our website. 

Buy your tickets here!

Broschyren och programmet för sommaren. Biljettförsäljningen pågår!

Klicka här för att öppna broschyren.

Henri Sigfridsson is the soloist in Vaasa City Orchestra's concert on thursday. Henri has made his career internationally as a pianist as well as been the Artistic Director of Korsholm Music Festival. Together with other musicians from Vaasa City Orchestra he invites you to a musical salon.  

Henri Sigfridsson, piano
Erica Nygård, flute
Siri Ilanko, oboe
Eneko Iriarte Velasco, clarinet
Samuli Krohn, bassoon
Vesa Ania, horn
Maano Männi, violin
Viktor Olaus Nygård, viola
Vladimir Reshetko, cello
Pontus Grans, double bass

Jacques Ibert: Trois pièces brèves
Francis Poulenc: Sextet FP100
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Piano Quintet in C minor

Tickets 25/21/10 €

Three different Festival vouchers for the summer 2020 are now for sale at Studio Ticket, Rewell Center in Vasa as well as at the office in Vaasa City Hall! Read more...

Today we have officially begun our ticket sales with Early Bird prices! First up are the chamber concert "In company with the Archduke" 15.4, the Opening Concert 29.7, RItz 4.8 and the Closing Concert 5.8. Now you can buy our concert tickets for christmas gifts! Read more...

The Annual Meeting of Korsholm Music Festival will be held on Thursday 21.11 at 17.00 at Vaasa City Hall's Mirror Hall. We will introduce the results of this year's festival as well as the programme for next year. Our Artistic Director Cecilia Zilliacus will also attend the meeting. After the meeting, we welcome you to attend Vaasa City Orchestra's concert "Phantasma" at 19.00 in the Great Hall. The concert i lead by Mihhail Gerts with soloist Rebecca Roozeman.

If you wish to attend the Annual Meeting and the concert, contact us, 18.11 at the latest, to monica.johnson@korsholmmusicfestival.fi.

Korsholm Music Festival is arranged next year from 29.7 - 5.8.2020. The theme next year is still under production, but the programme will include Ludwig van Beethoven and the 1920s. It is his 250 years anniversary and the wild composer of his time will be noticed. Theme composer next year is Swedish composer Mats Larsson Gothe, who in his production has influences of Beethoven. The festival has also together with String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam and West Cork Chamber Music Festival commissioned a new piece for bassoon and string quartet, a bassoon quintet from Finnish composer Sebastian Fagerlund. 

The program for next summer will be ready in November 2019

Our wonderful friend and professional partner since many years is gone. Heikki Joensuu passed away unexpectedly 22.10.19. Heikki Joensuu worked in our festival since year 1989 with tuning and repairs of our grand pianos and transports. Within Korsholm Music Festival he leaves a big emptiness and we mourn and think of his family. Rest in peace.

In the Bluebird concert in the City Hall, we hear the fairy tale -piece with the same name after Zacharias Topelius book and classical finnish pieces: 

Erkki Melartin: Sleeping Beauty: The Festivity March & Valse of the Schmetterling
Armas Järnefelt: Praeludium, Berceuse & Ynglingadådet from the movie: sången om den eldröda blomman. 
Jean Sibelius: Valse triste & Andante festivo

The start of the festival is getting closer and we are prepared with new products for our festival audience. We are happy to tell that we have just received stylish and practical, reusable water bottles for 8€ as well as t-shirts for the soon world premiering church opera Pictures of Life (10€). Additionally we have our artists’ CDs, LPs, the book “Dining with Sibelius” among others. You find us at our festival office in Culturum (Koulukatu 31), where you can have a look at our products as well as get your tickets for concerts, the program book and the opera’s libretto – Welcome!

Become a member now and take advantage of all member benefits this coming summer during the Festival! Read more about the member benefits and become a member here.

The Chairman of Korsholm Music Festival, Bo Kronqvist has passed away after a short-term illness. He was 70 years old. He will always be remembered as the energetic and creative person he was and who always was working to bring the culture and chamber music to everyone. He will be greately missed. Rest in peace.

Picture: Rewell Center 25.7.2018 Opening flash, together with the singer Lena Willemark and violinist Cecilia Zilliacus. Photographer: Johan Hagström

The rehearsals for the Church Opera Elämänkuvat are being held in Vaasa City Hall 2-3.5. Attending are composer Olli Kortekangas. Vasa and Seinäjoki City Orchestras, conductor Anna-Maria Helsing and cembalist Petteri Pitko. The rehearsals begun yesterday morning with both orchestras and in the evening they continued with the choirs. Today 3.5. soloist Waltteri Torikka arrived and he will attend rehearsals today and tonight later together with the orchestras and choirs.

Korsholm Music Festival is looking for festival workers for the time 25.7-1.8 2019! Are you interested in working with us this summer? Send us a short application of your choice, where you tell us about yourself and why you want to work with us. Send the application to info@korsholmmusicfestival.fi, 31.5 2019 at the latest.