The 55th Kuhmo Chamber Music on July 13−26, 2025
The 55th Kuhmo Chamber Music will take place from 13th to 26th July 2025. . This year, our artistic directors Minna Pensola and Antti Tikkanen have chosen Nordic Utopia as the theme for the upcoming festival. The programme explores many unique aspects of Nordic culture, lifestyle, climate and mindset, while acknowledging the region’s deep connections and interconnections with the rest of the world. The 14-day festival programme features a total of 57 ticketed concerts.
Welcome to Kuhmo – the capital of chamber music!
Kuhmo Chamber Music
For two frenetic weeks in July, Kuhmo in Eastern Finland is host to a chamber music festival attracting thousands of music lovers. In that fortnight, this town of 8,000 inhabitants echoes to the sound of music against a backcloth of a lake that almost laps the walls of the concert halls in the clear, unbelievable northern light.
The concerts are held at the Kuhmo Arts Centre, in the Lentua Hall renowned for its excellent acoustics, in Kuhmo’s beautiful wooden Church, and in the Tuupala Primary School. The concert venues are all within walking distance of one another, and bicycles are a popular means of getting about, for artists and audiences alike. Music is everywhere, there are concerts from morning to late at night, and people just live for the music. In the evenings, gathered round an open fire in the yard of the festival restaurant, musicians and festival-goers get together and strike up friendships.
In over 50 years, Kuhmo Chamber Music has grown to become one of the world’s foremost music festivals. As early as 1989, the prestigious American journal Connoisseur was already calling it “possibly the best anywhere”. In summer 2014 the British Financial Times described it as “a remarkable event, where unfettered creative idealism reigns. The Austrian music magazine Festspiele has rated Kuhmo among the world’s leading festivals in 2008−2015.