Stundars Museum site, is a concert site and the place where the festival was founded 1983.

We see you in Stundars next summer!

After the annual meeting 2.12. the festival association´s members can join the concert with Vaasa City Orchestra. Conductor and soloist: Simon Crawford Phillips.

 https://www.vaasa.fi/en/see-and-experience/culture-in-vaasa-and-vaasa-region/vasa-city-orchestra/taken-by-the-rhythm/

Korsholm Music Festival celebrates it´s 40 chamber music year in 2022 and the festival is arranged 27.7–4.8.2022. The theme will according to the Artistic Director Cecilia Zilliacus be about the nature. Insects were in focus summer 2021. Next year will be about trees and woods. Cecilia Zilliacus has also invited previous Artistic Directors to patricipate in the festival next summer. It also seems that most of them can arrive. Regarding the name for the theme next year it will be announced at he yearly meeting of the association 2.12.2022. Then also parts of the programme 2022 will be published. 

During Korsholm Music Festival the chamber opera "Ringen" (The Ring) had its Finland premiere. The music composed by our composer in residence 2021 Mats Larsson Gothe, the libreto written by director Elisabet Ljungar. The the text had its inspiration from Se

Swedish author Hjalmar Söderberg and his unfinished novel "Ringen och de vises sten". In the melodrama we hear and see Gabriel Suovanen, baritone, and the musicians Cecilia Zilliacus, violin, Kati Raitinen, cello and Vicki Powell, viola. 

The chamber opera was performed in Vaasa  ond the stage in Ritz  4th of August. The opera can be viewed here on the webpage on 25.10 starting at 10.00 and the whole day. 

Watch concert, click here. More information about the opera and the musicians in the programmebook on the front page or on the sam page as the video. 

Concert in cooperation with Vaasa City Orchestra. The orchestra’s autumn season begins with a musical match between Finland and Sweden. Born in Vaasa, Siri Brander was a contemporary of Jean Sibelius and an enlightened animal rights activist. Her short piece Elegy, together with Sibelius’ third symphony, frame the double concerto by Swedish Mats Larsson Gothen, with Sweden’s brightest string stars Cecilia Zilliacus and Torleif Thedéen as the soloists. This is a match where both countries will share the victory!

Vasa stadsorkester
Tomas Djupsjöbacka, dirigent
Cecilia Zilliacus, violin

Torleif Thedéen, cello

Siri Brander (1866-1934): Elegie (1894), (arr. A. E. Westerlind)

Mats Larsson Gothe (1965-): Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra ”Sisyfos drömmar” (2009-10)

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957): Symphony No. 3 (1907)

Tickets 29 / 25 / 10 €

https://www.netticket.fi/ajattomat-myytit

During the replay week 1 - 8th of September, you can find the concert presentations and the information about all our artists that performed during the summer week. If you want to have your own paperback, you can get this from our office in the City Hall in Vaasa or by emailing us here, info@korsholmmusicfestival.fi.

The main concerts from each day are replayed at 20.00 every night from this page - choose concerts.

Read the trilingual book

This year the festival's composer-in-residence is Mats Larsson Gothe. During the festival week he will host lunch discussions at our festival café Loftet, with various artists joining him for a lively discussion. Come join us for lunch, talks – there will also be a little music!

The first lunch discussion will be held on the first day of the festival, Wednesday 28.7. at 12.30 pm, and Music Festival’s artistic director and violinist Cecilia Zilliacus, conductor Jonathan Stockhammer, soprano Christina Daletska and double bassist Rick Stotijn will join Mats Larsson Gothe for the event.

Other lunch discussions will take place on Friday 30.7, Monday 2.8. and Wednesday 4.8. The discussions will begin at 13.00 pm and before that you can enjoy lunch at Loftet. You will find the events from our concert page as well as our programme book – so you can check which artists will be there and when!

Free entry to all lunch discussions. The lunch can be paid at Loftet.

Unesco's World Heritage Site, Söderfjärden, Vaasa city center… This year we have many interesting excursions in Vaasa and surrounding areas at Korsholm Music Festival. The excursions include concert tickets, many fun activities and something to eat or drink. Read more about our excursions here.

Broken dishes, patches of fabric and pieces of yarn all get a new life at Korsholm Music Festival's recycling themed " Recycled Design" sales counter. Come admire local craftspeople's products and find some souvenirs!

You can come by the sales counter before and after the following concerts:

30.7. at 7 pm. Vaasa City Church, concert No. 9 “Das Lied von der Erde”

1.8. at 7 pm Vaasa City Hall, concert No. 16: "Great Expectations" 

4.8. at 8 pm. Vaasa City Church, concert No. 28 “Waldszenen”

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. Contact surfaces and door handles are disinfected before and during the concert according to the authorities' instructions. We will have programmes for sale before the concerts, and we recommend you card payments.

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 maintaining distance and one row at a time, beginning in the back or with the rows next to thr exits.

When you come to Korsholm Music Festival's concert halls 2021:
- Stay at home if you feel sick, have short of breath or cough - our concerts will be livestreamed home to you on the couch later in september!
- 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!
- We recommend you to wear a mask. Masks are sold before concerts at the concert venues.
- If you cough, do it in a disposable handkerchief or in the armpit!

Please Note! We are only releasing 50 seats for each concert now to begin with and we will follow the situation regading how many people in the audience are allowed to the halls in July and August. We will keep you updated on our social media and homepage during the summer.

Buy your tickets here or at the NetTicket booking offices:
www.netticket.fi/korsholm-music-festival
www.netticket.fi/bookingoffices

The concert programme can be found here:
www.korsholmmusicfestival.fi/Program/concerts

Welcome to participate in Master Classes this year!

This summer we organize Master Classes during the festival from 28.7-4.8. Read more and apply here.

 In the evening of 9th of April unfogettable music in new arrangements is performed with Finnish musicians playing, classical and jazz. 

Live stream from Doo-Bop Club! 

Kari Ikonen, piano
Quartet Ajaton. Members in the quartet:
Mia Simanainen, song

Henrik Sandås, bandoneón,
Kari Ikonen, moog syntheziser
Markus Hohti, cello. 

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Kari Ikonen, piano

”Musiken öser sin inspiration ur källor som favoritkonstnären Vassilij Kandiskijs målningar, men också arabiska skalor och japanska intryck…revolutionerande är den nya manicken maqiano, med vilken man kan spela mikrointervaller på vilket akustiskt piano som helst. Men Ikonens musik är tillika strålande. Det är väldigt sällan man hör något nytt inom musik, ens i jazz.” (Jan-Erik Holmberg, HBL 3.2.2021)

Quartet Ajaton: Early music in the latest way
 “The four members in the Quartet Ajaton are a pure dreamcombination” (Tove Djupsjöbacka, HBL 2.12.2020)

What kind of an ensemble?
Mia Simanainens sällsamma ensemble blåser alla traditionella begrepp i skyn då de skapar nytt av gammalt! Musikernas bakgrunder sträcker sig allt från jazz till barock, argentinsk tango nuevo till nutida konstmusik, improvisation och alla möjliga olika experiment. Detta har gjort gruppens musiserande till en enastående musikalisk expedition som redan fortsatt i sex år.

The Group published its first album ”Elixir” (Eclipse Music) on 2016, and a videocollection in year 2018. The second album ”Early Music in the Latest Way” was launched in autumn 2020 (Alba Records). It includes exclusivly old music (renaissance- and barockmusic) with own arrangementss of the quartet. Sure – the group takes care of beuty and the spirit in old music, but is still sometimes spinning around and make music as in the planet of Saturnus. Quartet Ajaton has made tours and concert trips to England, Sweden, Estonia and Russia. 

* Vi förbehåller oss rätten till ändringar. - Programme changes may occur.

Composer in Residence this year is the Swedish composer Mats Larsson Gothe. Larsson Gothe creates expressive and diverse music, which is being played all over the world. He composes music in different genres – symphonies, solo pieces, chamber music, choral and opera. During the Festival, we get to enjoy different parts of his creations and one World Premiere!

Earth Hour is a movement organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The event is held annually encouraging individuals, communities, and businesses to turn off non-essential electric lights, for one hour. This year the campaign is today 27th of March and Korsholm Music Festival will join this worldwide movement together with the rest of Finland. So tonight at 20.30-21.30 we will turn off our lights and electric gadgets for one hour. 

 Read more about Earth Hour here: https://www.earthhour.org

The Swedish Royal Court gives in the press news that His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustav has on the name-day KARL 28th of January 2021 decided a number of medal awards with H.M. Konungens medalj and the medal LITTERIS ET ARTIBUS. The medal Litteris et Artibus has been granted to composer Mats Larsson Gothe with the motivation of outstanding artistic contributions as a composer.

Korsholm Music Festival sends its warmest gratulations to MLG and wish him most welcome as composer in residence in the summer starting 28th of July!

Korsholm Music Festival was held online this summer between 28.7.-5.8!

Artistic Director Cecilia Zilliacus thinks that a live concert in front of an audience still is the best way of communicating music. Streaming is good in addition to live concerts in the future and especially nice for those who can´t make it to a concert hall. Many musicians this year have missed the interaction with an audience from behind the cameras. Still Zilliacus is happy that Korsholm Musid Festival could be arranged under the circumstances and with such good quality of the concerts.  ”In general the festival has done well, this was planned, when we finally took the decision" says director Johnson. We have learned the secrets of streaming! The personal encounters between audience and musicians is a loss, though. That is what makes the excitement of the festival.     

Next year the festival is arranged 28.7 - 4.8 2021!
Part of the artists that was cancelled this year due to Covid-19, will come next summer. Progressive rock on classical instruments by ORBI- ensemble from the Netherlands and german Signum Quartet will participate. Jazz guitarist Mathias Sandberg from Vasa and the operadivas Pia-Karin Helsing and Christin Högnabbawill be there. The Musethica- organisation of young musicians will participate. As residence composer will be Swedish Mats Larsson Gothe. Another composer participating is the Finnish Sebastian Fagerlund. More information about programme and artists to come during the Autumn.  

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

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.