Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival ( fi, Kuhmon Kamarimusiikki) is an international
chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small nu ...
festival held every July for two weeks in
Kuhmo,
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...
. It is the largest chamber music festival in Finland in terms of sold tickets. The festival attracts 6,000–8,000 visitors annually, with 95% of them being from Finland.
[Kinnunen, Hanne (14 July 2013)]
"Kuhmon Kamarimusiikki auttaa ensikertalaisia valitsemaan sopivan ohjelman"
("Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival to help first-timers choose an appropriate program). Yle. Retrieved 7 December 2013 . The number of concerts held within the two weeks is around 70. Approximately 170 artists from Finland and abroad perform at the festival. The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival also offers music courses, master classes and chamber music workshops that are taught by the festival artists.
History
The Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival was founded by a Finnish cellist
Seppo Kimanen in 1970.
[Brindle, Meg and Devereaux, Constance (eds.) (2011)]
''The Arts Management Handbook: New Directions for Students and Practitioners''
pp. 97–110. M.E. Sharpe. He and a handful of fellow students were looking for a place to arrange music courses and play chamber music. The total number of the audience in the 1970 festival was 800. In 2013, there were 72 concerts and over 36 000 tickets sold.
Vladimir Mendelssohn was the Artistic Director of the festival since 2005 till his death in 2021. He is followed by the violinists Minna Pensola and Antti Tikkanen.
Venues
The main venue is the Kuhmo Arts Centre. It was opened in 1993, and it is renowned for both its acoustics and design. There are two halls; Lentua, which 668 seats, and Pajakka, with 99 seats. Other venues include the Kontio School and Kuhmo Church.
[Discovering Finland Guide]
Kuhmo Arts Centre
. Retrieved 7 December 2013.
References
Further reading
* Hillila, Ruth-Esther and Hong, Barbara Blanchard (1997)
"Kuhmo Festival" ''Historical Dictionary of the Music and Musicians of Finland'', pp. 195–196. Greenwood Publishing Group.
* Subrenat, Jean-Jacques: ''Listen, There’s Music from the Forest: A Short Presentation of the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival.'' (In English and French.) .
External links
*
{{Chamber music festivals
Music festivals in Finland
Chamber music festivals
Chamber Music Festival
Summer events in Finland