Report from a Really Big Show, part 2

- by CMSCVA Artistic Director James Wilson

In part one of this blog, I explored some of the joys, the outsized scope, and the unique experiences of the Kuhmo Festival from the perspective of a musician. For this second installment, I would like to write about the tremendous amount of administrative and artistic organization that has to happen to make a festival of this size function smoothly.

The Kuhmo Festival was started in 1970 by Seppo Kimanen. Like many successful arts ventures, it started small and with a lovely, idealistic vision…to have a music festival and school in a place of great natural beauty. It grew quickly, but 43 years later (with 80 concerts and 167 musicians participating) the festival still retains the idealistic spirit. Concerts are fairly informal, and it’s common to see performers wearing T-shirts on stage. And there’s a certain “all for one and one for all” attitude about this festival that makes it unique – it hasn’t fallen into the commercial pattern that big festivals in the states have. Here they actually call this attitude “the Kuhmo style.”

But attitude only goes so far when faced with a tsunami of concerts and rehearsals.
  - a concert hall booked from 6am to 12 midnight every day
    - 20 pianos are imported for the festival
      - 35 rehearsals per day!
        - 12 and more stage hands
          - 100 students
            - 3 full-time page turners
              - 350 volunteers

It makes my head spin to think about these things.  Just getting musicians from here to there is a feat, brilliantly accomplished Kuhmo-style by providing bicycles for most of the artists. Yes, even the cellists!

The team behind all this number and time crunching is a quartet of brilliant women who set the festival wheels in motion with grace, spirit and professionalism. Between rehearsals, practice and concerts, I found the time to  meet briefly with three of them.

The head of the Festival, the Executive Director, is Sari Rusanen. Beautiful and charming, she is the perfect spokesperson for this enormous event. I often see her leading people (donors, perhaps) in tours of the concert hall, a building of which she is justly proud. Ms. Rusanen has worked for the Kuhmo festival for 20 years, starting as its financial manager. She has been the Executive Director for 3 years. I asked her what her goal is as head of the organization. Her answer in modest Kuhmo style – “To see a better festival year after year.”  I asked Sari two additional simple questions:
    Q. What is the most challenging thing about Kuhmo?
A. “To organize one of the world’s great chamber music festivals – 14 days, 100 events, 330 people working for us - all within such a modest budget.”
    Q. What is the most rewarding thing about Kuhmo?
A. “To have, in the middle of nowhere, the best kind of chamber music festival full of great music and great artists from all over the world. And to see Kuhmo for two weeks out of the year become one of the world’s capitols of chamber music.
I loved these answers!

Retiring this season after 30 years of being Kuhmo’s Administrative Director is Ritva Eervola. She is the organizational and financial brain behind the festival, and spends the year dealing with the myriad of details needed to keeping things running. With wise eyes behind some seriously retro-chic glasses, she exudes calm and focused intent. I asked Ritva about what she will miss the most about Kuhmo, and she answered without hesitation, “the people.” I also asked her my two basic questions.
    Q. What is the most challenging thing about Kuhmo?
A. “Having every detail so well organized that the audience has no idea how much work it took to produce the concerts – to make it seem easy and fun and not know the pain and tears [said with laughter] behind the scenes. It should seem that we simply called the musicians up and they came to play a concert.”
    Q. What is the most rewarding thing about Kuhmo?
    A. “To see it all happen.”

Sera Valtonen is the festival’s Rehearsal Coordinator, an important job that seemed near impossible until I learned that she uses a specifically designed computer program to organize the rehearsals. Because of this, no one is double-booked, or has to rehearse all day long. The program is also linked to the administrative organization so if an executive decision has to be made, changes are automatically calculated into the rehearsal schedule. Sera answered my two questions.
Q. What is the most challenging thing about Kuhmo?
A. “Coming here relaxed! Being at this festival is so busy with my job, and it’s busier because I also want to reserve some time to socialize with the people here. So I take a vacation before I come here.”
    Q. What is the most rewarding thing about Kuhmo?
A. “To see artists going onstage and everything works. It gives joy to this job to attend one of the concerts. And to get paid for it!”

This administrative quartet works hand in hand with festival’s Artistic Director, Vladimir Mendelssohn. As I wrote in part one of the blog, he is the Svengali behind all the music. At once intellectual, poetic, unflinching and sentimental, Mr. Mendelssohn has the vast knowledge of repertoire and the vast contacts with other musicians needed to fill a festival like this with interesting, entertaining and high-quality programs. Being a man of few words is no problem for him – his intellect, humor and spirituality come through loud and clear in the programming. I’ll never forget a concert he devised on the theme of Cold War Germany, and some of the music that was officially sanctioned by the GDR. It started with a Handel harpsichord sonata, and then the walls parted and musicians were revealed singing a pro-Communist propaganda march, followed by Bach’s Coffee Cantata. Sheer genius, and pure Valdy – equal parts beauty, irony, scholarship and surprise.  He spends his time in Kuhmo handling crises and triumphs on a daily basis. Just a 48 hours ago he conjured up a 1960’s era pedal harpsichord that needed to be delivered to Kuhmo overnight for a piece by Sophia Gubaidulina, and today he performed a beautiful performance of Schubert’s D minor Quartet. I am convinced that there is a top secret cloning program in Finland and that there are actually two or more of him running around.
    Q. Most challenging aspect of being the Artistic Dirtector?
    A. “To know how far to go with risk-taking in the programs, and know when not to go too far.”
    Q. Most rewarding thing of being the Artistic Director?
    A. “The 1 to 5 minutes when everything seems normal.”

The can-do Kuhmo spirit also masks some of the tremendous stamina and dedication on the part of the musicians here. Often there will be only the bare minimum of time to prepare a difficult piece of music, and when the schedule says that rehearsal starts at 6:42pm and ends at 8:05pm, you better believe that you have no extra time. So the level of performing ability is stunning. Taking the pressure off and keeping the musicians relaxed and happy is taken very seriously at Kuhmo. The Salakamari restaurant is the official watering hole for after-concert socializing. You can order a drink here, put a sausage on a stick and roast it over the open fire pit. In any case you’ll want to get near the fire – it keeps the mosquitoes away! There are also many social events arranged for the musicians. These include late-night sauna parties at stunning locations near gorgeous lakes - chances to have some food and beer, sit by a fire and have a sauna. The saunas have an additional benefit. Trust me, there absolutely can be no attitude in rehearsal or on stage after you’ve been baking au natural with your colleagues in mind-numbing heat!

I find Kuhmo challenging and exciting, and supremely motivating. It’s a tremendous boost to come here and collaborate and socialize with all of these wonderful musicians. It’s also important to me to be making music in Finland, a place where the love and appreciation of classical chamber music is palpable and deeply felt. There is a quote from Executive Director Sari Rusanen in the festival program book:
“Living life to the full generates some of the best memories. A festival is always a chance for this.”
I hope that all of you reading this will some day have the opportunity to experience this unique and impressive festival.
Click here to go to the Kuhmo Festival website

A Really Big Show: A Report from the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival

  - by CMSCVA Artistic Director James Wilson

For the next fourteen days, I’m staying in the small town of Kuhmo, Finland, population 9,200. It’s located halfway up the country, a seven-hour drive from Helsinki, seventy-five miles from the Russian border. At this time of year, there are twenty-two hours of daylight in the day. There are bears lurking somewhere here, wild lupines and phlox are abundant, and the strawberries are fabulous. But what makes this cozy place so extraordinary, and a worthy subject for this chamber music blog, is the fact that it is also the home of one of the world’s largest chamber music festivals!

The numbers are impressive - over the next two weeks, there will be eighty concerts, performed by more than a hundred and sixty musicians. I am particularly privileged to one of seventeen cellists performing in this festival. But even as a musician/insider at Kuhmo, I still feel as if this festival sprung up magically from nothing.  I was picked up at the airport, dropped off at my accommodations, and then hit the ground running  - all the time supported by an amazing staff and organizational system that feels like a clockwork security blanket.

I’d like to uncover the mysteries of Kuhmo in a set of two blogs. This first one will try to explain what the place feels like. The second will uncover some of the intricate workings behind the scenes that allow this “really big show” to go on.

 - We’ll begin our Kuhmo experience right in the heart of things…by enjoying a pancake!
Step up to the stand and order a sweet pancake with berries and dusted with sugar. As you eat it, look straight ahead at gorgeous Lake Lammasjärvi sparkling in the sun and surrounded by pine trees and a tent selling fish dinners. As a native Michigander, I love this view - it reminds me of where I grew up. Look to you left and you can just make out the ochre spire of the 18th century wooden Kuhmo church, one the concert venues here. Immediate to your left is the Kontio school auditorium, a 500 seat gym-cum-concert venue that has basketball nets, climbing ropes and wonderful acoustics. Turn around and you see the beautiful Kuhmo Performing Arts Center, a state-of-the-art hall that houses many of the night-time concerts. The fourth concert venue is a rustic wooden restaurant named Salakamari (“Secret Place”), a short walk away and home to late night offerings of poetry and music.

 - The next sensory experience…the scent of mosquito repellent.
Speaking of late night, night is really late here. Twilight stretches to 1am, which is unsettling to someone like me coming from the USA. If you do the math, eighty concerts in fourteen days is an amazing amount of music in a short space of time, but the days are incredibly long here. So, typically there are five or more concerts a day, starting at 11am and often ending at midnight. Kuhmo is a giant musical smorgasbord. You can pick and choose what you would like to hear during any given day, or (as most people prefer) go for the entire five-course concert experience. Dazed and elated, crowds spill out of the last concert of the day and often chase the day’s experience with a late night drink at Salakamari.  The mosquitoes love this time of day, and fly in clouds around any warm-blooded creature standing still. If you come here, get used to it - the piquant odor of mosquito spray becomes as useful and welcoming as the nightcap.

- The sounds of silence, clapping and the occasional American accent.
People from all over the world come to Kuhmo to hear these concerts. Occasionally when I am wading through the throngs at intermission I hear an American accent. It’s a surprisingly out-of-place thing to hear in Kuhmo, and so I usually introduce myself to my countrymen. I met a woman here from San Francisco who told me she “would rather go here” than to the large European festivals more well known in the USA, say Salzburg or Edinburgh. – “the music is more interesting and more accessible to the real music lover,” she enthusiastically told me. Indeed a chamber music festival of this size and intensity makes sense (and perhaps could only exist) in Finland. The Finnish love of music of all kinds is legendary, and people from all over the country flock here in droves to submerge themselves in chamber music and enjoy the natural beauty.  An astonishing 30,000-plus people (!) attend this festival, and they are very enthusiastic and appreciative. This is mind-boggling to me. Venues are typically packed with hundreds of people. During performances you could hear a pin drop…until the applause of course. When the audience particularly likes a performance, they clap rhythmically, Russian-style. If a piece by Jean Sibelius is played here it is a non-to-be-missed event…the audience positively lights up with pride.

- Musical story telling in Thirteen and One nights.
This astounding chamberpalooza is curated with creative flair and visionary imagination by its Artistic Director, Vladimir Mendelssohn. Concerts are ingeniously organized as a kind of story telling and Vlady plays the role of Sheherazade to Kuhmo’s music-addicted audiences, who return day after day to hear the next compelling tale. For instance one of this week’s concerts had a “storm” theme, starting with Beethoven’s Pastoral Piano Sonata, then to Brahms’ “Regenlied” Violin Sonata, Johann Strauss’ “Thunder and Lighting” Polka, Saariaho’s “Lichtbogen,” and finally ending with a piano transcription of “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” There are world premieres, obscure chamber operas, and of course enough Brahms sextets, Beethoven string quartets and Mendelssohn piano trios to satisfy the most hard core chamber music fan. Above all there are musical surprises and treasures around every corner, and a lot of new music to befriend. One of my favorite things to do here is to listen to a concert without reading the program, and just go with the flow. I’ve heard so much fabulous music here that I wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to. But personally, I am waiting to hear a concert of music written about cats!

- It takes a village (of musicians).
Bringing Mr. Mendelssohn’s vision to life are the one hundred and sixty seven musicians who come from all over the world to play here. Some are very famous (Gidon Kremer for example), some play in top orchestras in Europe, some are rising stars. All are dedicated and versatile performers, and amiable colleagues: one has to be to perform in such an intense festival.  A particularly striking contingent is the group of four composers-in-residence this summer - Kaija Saariaho, Krzysztof Penderecki, Magnus Lindberg and Sofia Gubaidulina - a list that reads like a who’s who of influential contemporary composers. The Finnish musicians are astounding. It’s an amazing (and rather Las Vegas style) experience to play chamber orchestra works here surrounded by incredibly talented Finns, all blond and gorgeous. On a personal note, I’m always surprised to be one of the few Americans, but that means I an exposed to different playing styles that are different and refreshing. CMSCVA fans will be pleased to learn that I am not the only musician in Kuhmo that performs for our Society back in Richmond – harpsichordist Carsten Schmidt and harpist Sivan Magen are also here.

- Don’t look behind that curtain!
As one can only imagine, organizing and producing a festival of this scope requires mind-boggling commitment. In the next installment of this blog, I’ll explore the nuts and bolts of this festival, and interview some of the key players who make it a reality.

Until then, “Hei hei!”

To learn more about the Kuhmo Festival, click here