Joensuu Winter Music Festival is being held for the 40th time! The anniversary festival is held in two parts. The first concert set will be held on February 24–28 and the second on June 12th when the festival continues for two more events. The festival is organized by the Joensuu City Orchestra together with local music actors. The artistic director of the festival in 2021 is conductor Eero Lehtimäki.
The anniversary year's program offers impressive musical experiences for each and everyone. The collaborators are already familiar from previous years: Joensuu Conservatory, Jazzclub-76, Virta Ensemble, The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Joensuu Big Band, whose soloist will be jazz singer Aili Ikonen.
In addition, the folk music ensemble Frigg and the Sisaruet choir led by Tellu Turkka will perform. In honor of the anniversary year, Joensuu Winter Music Festival is organizing an event on the market square for the whole family in June. The event is hosted by Theatre Tractor, performing e.g. JOY Choir, as well as the Conservatory's children's and youth choirs.
Two premieres will be heard at Joensuu Winter Music Festival, which can be viewed as video recordings on Joensuu Winter Music Festival’s website.
Composition by Cecilia Damström, Nixus op. 75, will be available on 26.–28.2.2021. The work is performed by the Joensuu City Orchestra and conducted by Eero Lehtimäki.
The second premiere, the Karelian Suite, will be performed by the Karelian State Philharmonic. The concert will be conducted by Alexey Nyaga. Concert on view 28.2.–7.3.2021.
The premieres are provided by the Big Music for Small Cities -project. The project is supported by the Karelia Cross Border Cooperation program and funded by the European Union, Finland and Russia.
The current corona situation has also affected Joensuu Winter Music Festival’s plans. Most of the concerts are seen as video recordings or live stream concerts. Tickets for only a few concerts are sold on site max. 20 tickets / concert. See the program and links to the concerts below.
–Plans have changed many times and the fear of being able to run the festival at all has been strongly present, but the challenges have been made to be overcome. We want to offer people stimulating and hopefully also empowering music experiences that can be listened to and watched safely from home, says Eveliina Pietarinen, producer of the Joensuu Music Winter.
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