The 54th Kuhmo Chamber Music on July 14−27, 2023
The 54rd Kuhmo Chamber Music festival will be held 14–27.7.2023. The theme is Borderlands. The idea of borders is examined from an array of different perspectives, both geographical, linguistic, cultural, social, spiritual and physical.
The number of concerts is 60, 4–5 per day. Among the pieces are traditional chamber works, but also surprises, novelties and exotic experiences. In addition to the main concerts there are children’s concerts, student concerts, talks on the programmes for the day, instrument demonstrations, meetings with artists and composers, art exhibitions workshops and unexpected musical moments in the surrounding nature. Together these side events amount to some 30 events.
100 international artists will perform in Kuhmo. Among them will be pianists Heini Kärkkäinen and Olli Mustonen, violinists Daniel Rowland, John Storgårds and Elina Vähälä, cellist Maja Bogdanović and flutist Janne Thomsen. Ensembles will include the Castalian, Danel, Kamus and Meta4 string quartets and the Storioni Trio.
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.