Earth Ears Ensemble

Tell me how it moves and I’ll tell you how it sounds is a concert about the intertwined relationship between sound, movement, and gesture: where sound comes from, what precedes it, and what remains after it has faded. How does our perception of sound change when it is accompanied by movement? What sound do we anticipate when we see a particular gesture? And how does the experience shift, for both performer and listener, when sound emerges from gesture, or when movement itself is driven by sound?

The programme brings together four world premieres with two existing works that all explore the relationship between movement, gesture, and sound. The concert features new music by Heta Aho, Kimmo Hakola, Jarkko Hartikainen, and Jukka Tiensuu all written for the Earth Ears Ensemble.

In Theme and Announcement (2025), Heta Aho imagines an overture that can launch any Earth Ears concert: restless, sharply rhythmic music from which quirky dances, off-kilter grooves, and a whistleable theme gradually emerge. A borrowed fragment of birdsong (the great tit) flickers above the ensemble as the music surges forward with humour and energy, occasionally brushing against darker, growling depths.

Jarkko Hartikainen’s Natural Attunements (2026) takes its inspiration from the movements of nature. The animals, bodies of water, plants, and air all around us are constantly in motion. This innovative work pushes performers to find new ways of working together to create sounding movement, incorporating video queues to prompt improvisation inspired by our natural surroundings.

Silence must be! (2002), Thierry de May’s iconic work, is itself an investigation of whether movement is the basis of music. The soloist conductor faces the audience and begins to conduct in increasingly complex polyrhythms, eventually reaching the golden proportion – that mathematical ratio from nature, art, and architecture that represents the ideal aesthetic balance. There is no sound, but is there music?

Läpikajot Op. 120 is Kimmo Hakola’s new composition for six-stringed electric cello and live electronics. A relatively new instrument, the six-string electric cello is inspired by older six-stringed acoustic consort viols, like the viola de gamba. Hakola makes use of the instrument’s extended range and resonance to embed an orchestral quality, while at the same time promoting the clarity and colours that make cello and electronic sounds unique.

An Earth Ears concert would not be complete without Pauline Oliveros, from whose canon the ensemble takes its namesake. Like many Oliveros works, Sound Piece shifts the focus for audience and performer inward. Each performer selects and stages their own sounds, optionally accompanied by gesture or performative action. While the materials are individually chosen, the music only reveals itself in real time, as contributions unfold according to pre-selected timings.

The final work on the programme is a long awaited premiere from Jukka Tiensuu, Loimut. Tiensuu’s first chamber ensemble work with electronics in nearly 30 years, Loimut intertwines performers and listeners through its dense and layered counterpoint. The artistic energy is borne out of the ensemble’s own movements and gestures. Rhythmic and vibrant, struggling to the very end and searching for itself, this work evokes as many images as the title itself.

Across the evening the concert unfolds as a journey with sound, movement, and perception, inviting performers and audiences alike into a space of heightened listening, watching, and playfulness too!

Duration: 75 min