Antti Auvinen appointed Artistic Director of Tampere Biennale

The Tampere Biennale, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, concluded on Sunday. The programme, designed by artistic director Minna Leinonen, brought together new ensembles and boldly combined various branches of the arts. Minna Leinonen passes the torch to composer Antti Auvinen.

Preliminary figures show that the Tampere Biennale attracted some 3,000 visitors to its concerts and other events. Visitor numbers for the instrument building workshop on Family Day and for the exhibitions will be confirmed later.

The opening concert at the Old City Hall featured the contemporary music ensemble TampereRaw, which also celebrated an anniversary this year — their 25th. As the festival progressed, music took over concert venues and cultural spaces all over the city. Audiences were eager to discover new, multi-discipline concepts such as a night concert combining piano music and visual art and a promenade concert at the Sara Hildén Art Museum featuring the graphic art of Pentti Kaskipuro and a performance by flautist Malla Vivolin and actor Ella Mettänen. Attendance was also gratifyingly high at the merger of contemporary music and traditional joik with Uusinta Ensemble and Ánnámáret, and also at the encounter between the saxophone quartet Saxtronauts and folk musician Maija Kauhanen. The biggest event in terms of the number of both performers and listeners was the concert of the Tampere Philharmonic.

The festival occupied outdoor spaces and streets as well. A piece commissioned by the Tampere Biennale from Jonne Valtonen, Kutsuva, [Calling], was played on the Frenckell carillon between Wednesday and Sunday. A shorter version provided the recess bell at Pyynikintie School for the week.

The artistic directorship of the Tampere Biennale now passes to composer Antti Auvinen, who will curate the programme to be performed on 5–9 April 2028.

“Over the decades, the Tampere Biennale has established itself as one of the premiere festivals of art music in Finland. It is an iconic event built on fantastic local expertise and an uncompromisingly high level of artistic quality. It has ramifications well beyond our borders. I am pleased and humbly grateful to be invited to join this continuum,” says Auvinen.

Outgoing artistic director Minna Leinonen describes the festival now concluded and her four-year tenure in the post:

“The most rewarding thing about the job was to innovate and facilitate new forms of collaboration in the arts and to bring new Finnish music to audiences previously unfamiliar with it. I also highlighted regional specialties and my three favourite settings in Tampere: the national urban landscape of Hämeensilta bridge and the Tammerkoski rapids at my first festival and the Pyynikki nature reserve this year. Artistic collaboration and diversity nurtures new forms of expression and forges contacts between people that could not be established in any other way.”

The sound art exhibition Puu ei laula yksin [Trees don’t sing alone] continues at the Laikku Gallery until 10 May. The sound walk Taikatie [Magic Path] on Pyynikki ridge will also continue in the form of student performances: some 1,000 7th graders will be walking the walk this spring and next autumn as part of the Taidekaari arts education programme of the City of Tampere. Walkers listen to the story on their own mobile devices; the narrative is written by Anni Kytömäki and read by actor Hannu-Pekka Björkman. The music is by composer Pietari Kaasinen, and the violin player is Linda Suolahti.