Historic BASSO gathering marked the culmination of Marko Ahtisaari’s term as Artistic Director of Helsinki Festival
Helsinki Festival 15.8.–1.9.2024 attracted more than 100,000 visitors to the opening events of the 35th anniversary of the Night of the Arts. Marko Ahtisaari served as the festival’s Artistic Director for the last time this year – Ahtisaari’s term will be remembered for major international dance and orchestra visits and works using new technology.
Marko Ahtisaari served as Artistic Director of Helsinki Festival from 2019 until 2024, and his final year began with a spectacular tribute to the foundation of music, the bass. On the Night of the Arts 15 August BASSO, a new work by Lauri Porra commissioned by Helsinki Festival for 147 bass performers, attracted an audience of over 25,000 to Senate Square. AI Helsinki, an exhibition in Esplanade Park free and open to the public for the duration of the festival, also opened on the Night of the Arts. The exhibition of synthetic photography depicted Helsinki and the city’s residents through the eyes of artist Kevin Abosch using artificial intelligence. Almost 350 individual art events took place on the warm Night of the Arts.
Watch BASSO:
The international dance visit at this year’s festival was the British dancer-choreographer Akram Khan’s breathtaking Jungle Book reimagined. The work, which features animation and stage art, tackles climate change. Interpreted by top international dancers, Jungle Book reimagined was performed four times in Dance House Helsinki to critical acclaim.
Two unique performances emerged as the highlights of the classical music programme. The Cleveland Orchestra performed at Musiikkitalo on two nights under conductor Franz Welser-Möst, and the soloist of the first concert was Víkingur Ólafsson. A previously-unheard semi-staged concert version of Modest Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina, brought together by conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, elicited a five-star review from the Financial Times: “To hear this in Helsinki – a city three hours from St Petersburg where the tension induced by Russia is palpable – was a searing moment of the present merging with the past.”
Other notable Helsinki Festival concerts included the Glass & Bach recital by Latvian organist Iveta Apkalna, which sold out already in the spring, as well as Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra’s Music & Mind concert including works selected by Professor and music educator Suvi Saarikallio and neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin, with bassist Victor Wooten as the soloist. The theme of the concert was the impact of music on the mind and health, and the discussions that accompanied the concert attracted a record-breaking audience in the Music Center foyer.
The many sold-out concerts at Huvila also became audience favourites, including Carla Bruni’s first concert in Finland and the celebration of Samuli Putro’s 20-year solo career, with the surprise comeback gig by Zen Café. Other sold-out Huvila concerts were Cat Power’s reinterpretation of Bob Dylan’s “Royal Albert Hall” concert and concerts by Hermanos Gutiérrez, Angélique Kidjo as well as Anna Puu with Mikko Franck and the Vantaa Orchestra.
Diverse programmes of both free and ticketed events were also offered by Helsinki Festival’s friendly festivals: Alakulttuuripäivä, GÁTT Nordic Arts Festival, Helsinki Contemporary Opera Festival, the Choir Tour, Outsider Art Festival, Runokuu/Poetry Moon, SAMPO Festival, Teatteri Sirkus Suosalo and Viapori Jazz.
Helsinki Festival under Marko Ahtisaari will be remembered for major international dance and orchestra visits and works using new technology
In 2019, Giséle Vienne’s Crowd was performed at the Finnish National Opera, with a soundtrack curated by Peter Rehberg featuring a cross section of the history of electronic music. In 2022, Dance House Helsinki hosted Tree of Codes by musician-producer Jamie xx, installation artist Olafur Eliasson and choreographer Wayne McGregor, as well as choreographer Boris Charmatz’s 10,000 gestures – 10,000 dance gestures without repeating a single one. The highlights of 2023 included two versions of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, as Pina Bausch’s choreography was interpreted by more than 30 dancers from 14 African countries at Dance House Helsinki, and the British Aurora Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas Collon, performed the orchestral work from memory at Musiikkitalo. Ahtisaari’s term will also be remembered for this year’s visit by The Cleveland Orchestra, as the orchestra performed in Finland for the first time since 1965.
Helsinki Festival launched free Art Gifts to bring art experiences to courtyards and under balconies during the exceptional COVID pandemic years. These short gift performances delighted audiences for several summers. Helsinki Festival designed the Art Gift concept on the open-source principle and made the web application for managing the production freely available to festivals everywhere. Subsequently art gifts have been presented by arts festivals around the world including Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Ireland. For more, please visit: helsinkifestival.fi/artgifts
During Ahtisaari’s term Helsinki Festival also featured works that use new technologies in other ways. The 2019 festival premiered Robot Choir, a sound installation at Senate Square that extended choral sound to new dimensions that are impossible for the human voice. In the same year, the generative installation Singing Bowl (Ascension) by electronic musician Jon Hopkins took over Helsinki railway station for the entire festival. In 2020, the Mika Vainio 50Hz exhibition at Kiasma presented the most extensive overview of the works of electronic music pioneer and sound artist Mika Vainio. In subsequent years, an exhibition featuring Brian Eno‘s generative audiovisual installations, 77 Million Paintings and Other Audio-Visual Works, took over the Music Centre, and IP a new work by Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, presented Holly+ an AI model of Herndon’s own voice on stage for the first time. In 2024 Kevin Abosch’s film Am I?, the world’s first entirely synthetic feature length movie, had its world premiere during the Night of the Arts in collaboration with Amos Rex and Helsinki International Film Festival. Artificial intelligence was also utilized in the graphic identity of Helsinki festival using the RYJ series of commissioned works by Kevin Abosch made with machine learning models built on the Finnish ryijy tradition.
“I want to thank all of you, friends of the arts, for spending time together immersed in art. Without you, there would be no Helsinki Festival. A festival is always a kind of artistic state of emergency, and it has been a joy to create these emergencies for you,” says Marko Ahtisaari. “In times of war and uncertainty, art can unite and move us forward. The first great European multi-art festivals – like Helsinki Festival – were launched after World War II inspired by the thought that if we experience each other’s art, there would be no more war. Even in these times, I believe in this. Art has a role in waging peace.”
After his tenure at Helsinki Festival, Marko Ahtisaari will serve as Chair of the Board of the independent peace mediation organisation CMI – Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation and launch House of Sound, a new centre for sound art, in Ii in 2026–2027. For more information, please visit: markoahtisaari.com.
The main partners of the 2024 Helsinki Festival were Elisa and Helsingin Sanomat, sponsor Accenture and service partners Akun tehdas, Food Camp, Grano, Heku, Helsinki Bryggeri, Marski by Scandic, Neural DSP and Renault.
BASSO and The Cleveland Orchestra concert are available as recordings on the Festival website: helsinkifestival.fi. The next Helsinki Festival will be held from 14 to 31 August 2025. Johanna Freundlich will serve as the Festival’s Artistic Director in 2025–2029. Events in next year’s programme will be announced in autumn 2024 and spring 2025.
Image: Otso Kähönen