Next Year’s Theme: Revolution

Kuhmo Chamber Music’s festival, themed “Celebrations & Ceremonies”, concluded on Saturday with birthday festivities for the string quartet Meta4. During the 14-day festival, which began on July 12, celebrations marked various occasions throughout the year, including Easter, May Day, Midsummer, and Christmas, as well as birthdays and anniversaries of composers and artists. An important part of the celebration was the European Capital of Culture year of Oulu and its 39 neighboring municipalities, for which Kuhmo Chamber Music participated through three world premieres.

“We are tremendously happy to see how the programme we designed began to resonate among the artists and spark entirely new dimensions,” say Artistic Directors Minna Pensola and Antti Tikkanen.

Kuhmo Chamber Music recorded 19,847 concert visits. Highlights of the summer included world premieres by Olli Mustonen, Cecilia Damström, and Krishna Nagaraja. The most popular events included concerts featuring Arja Koriseva, the Danel Quartet, and the Storioni Trio, as well as the 40th anniversary concert of the City of Kuhmo, the 100th anniversary concert of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle), and Ulla Tapaninen’s comedy evening “Lava-ammuntaa”. A total of 96 international artists performed at the festival. Among the newcomers who particularly impressed audiences were Orsino Ensemble, Trio Brontë, Musicus Soloists Hong Kong, and singer Arja Koriseva together with Alakulo Ensemble.

The festival’s music courses attracted 95 participants. The most distant attendees came from the United States, South Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong. A new intensive training programme, Kamarista, was launched, providing two talented string quartets with coaching from top-level instructors while also integrating them into the festival’s artist roster. The Kamarista ensembles of summer 2026 were the Karelia String Quartet and the Modulor Quartet.

Ticket sales totaled €496,000. “Our goal was to reach €500,000, so we are pleased that we essentially achieved our target,” says Sari Rusanen, Executive Director of the festival. “Ticket revenue accounts for half of the festival’s budget, making it enormously important,” she adds.

Kuhmo Chamber Music and its music courses were organized with a budget exceeding one million euros. The festival and courses received support from the Arts Promotion and Cultural Agency of Finland and the City of Kuhmo. The Kamarista programme was supported by the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and the Finnish Cultural Foundation. The Oulu Cultural Foundation provided support for the world premieres. Corporate partners during the summer included OP Kaskimaa, Kainuun Sanomat, Kuhmo Oy, Osuuskauppa Maakunta, No-Pan Auto Oy, and Renforsin Ranta.

Next summer, Kuhmo Chamber Music and the 57th Kuhmo Music Courses will take place from 11 to 24 July 2027. The festival theme will be “Revolution”. The programme and artists will be announced in January 2027. New commissioned works for the summer will be composed by Heta Aho and Marzi Nyman.

Further information:
Kuhmo Chamber Music
Tel. +358 44 544 5162