The Tampere Biennale, a festival of modern art music, was seen and heard in a variety of ways in the city centre of Tampere from 10 to 14 April 2024. Artistic Director Minna Leinonen had curated a programme that boldly brought together branches of the arts and introduced contemporary music to the streets of the city. Preliminary figures give a combined event attendance of 3,638, in addition to which thousands of people heard the ‘singing sculptures’ on Hämeensilta bridge and the work commissioned by the festival for the Frenckell carillon.
The opening concert featured the award-winning Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, a rare visitor to Tampere. As the festival progressed, live music branched out from concert halls to various cultural venues, clubs and the outdoors. The lunchtime concerts at Museo Milavida and at the Sara Hildén Art Museum were very well attended.
“We created new concepts to augment the traditional concert hall experience. Sirja Nironen and Antti Tiensuu gave a highly successful promenade concert at the Sara Hildén Art Museum. It brought together the visual art exhibited, a short story by Eeva-Liisa Manner and contemporary music in a way that went above and beyond the conventional and raised us up with it,” says Leinonen.
New ideas in urban art were explored with Äänitarina Tammerkoskella [Sound story at Tammerkoski], a sound art work strung along the shore of Tammerkoski rapids, and the singing sculptures on Hämeensilta bridge.
“In the sound story, listeners became part of the work as they walked around the historical city centre. The singing sculptures brought art out of the concert hall into the everyday environment, restoring art as a component of our ordinary lives,” Leinonen explains.
The concerts given by Crash Ensemble, Ireland’s leading contemporary music ensemble, and by defunensemble, which performs electroacoustic music, were gratifyingly well attended. On the whole, the festival succeeded in presenting a multitude of voices, genres and generations and also in attracting new audiences to contemporary music.
Executive Director Minnakaisa Kuivalainen points to the composition pedagogy aspect, never before included to such an extent in the Tampere Biennale programme. Composition pedagogy was mainstreamed throughout the festival, from the preview event to the family day concluding the festival, at the basic education level and at the vocational education level. Also, the upper secondary school music education development project held a training event of its own during the festival.
Basque composer Mikel Urquiza contributed to the composition pedagogy package with a workshop he held for composition students at the Tampere University of Applied Sciences. His music was also featured in three of the festival concerts.
The Tampere Biennale has been held every other spring since 1986, and this year’s festival was thus the 20th. The next edition of the festival will be held on 15–19 April 2026, with composer Minna Leinonen staying on as Artistic Director.