Pianist Rants

​I find making concert programs both​ endlessly fascinating and very frustrating​. Here's some thoughts about the process.​

According to Wikipedia, 'absolute music is non-representational' - it doesn't try to describe anything. It isn't made for a specific purpose either, for dancing, a church service, or something like that. It just is. The term has been used since the mid-19th century, but the idea was already there a hundred years earlier. Absolute music was...

​After a year of the C-business, it's time to take stock.

This week I listened through Women musicians -study days, arranged by the University of Arts History Forum and the DocMus and MuTri doctoral schools. The days included a multitude of topics, all somehow connected to the women in music -theme. Listening to the speakers, I noticed that at some point all of them seemed to be talking...

First and foremost I'd like a covid-19 vaccine - one that actually ends the pandemic and the restrictions. I think we've all seen enough of this virus business by now.Snow to Helsinki, in large quantities. And minus degrees, preferably lower than 10°C, for a couple of months. Finnish winter darkness + rain + covid = total blackness of the soul.The...

Stress and fatigue. How could they possibly have anything to do with a classical musician?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about gender, and now I have a lot of questions. What I don't have is answers, but if you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

I had the very great pleasure of playing the keyboard in a Turandot production this August. There's no keyboard in a Puccini orchestra, you might think, but that's where you're wrong. An arrangement for 15 players by Enrico Minaglia (Ricordi) includes indeed a keyboard, from which emerge the alluring sounds of harp, celesta, chinese gongs,...

​I was accompanying a viola master class in July. During Spring I'd mainly worked with singers, so this felt like a very different business. Here's me trying to pinpoint how, exactly.​

Many people dislike auditions, and I can't blame them - it's unpleasant business trying to convince others you're great in six minutes or less. To make the experience a bit more pleasant, I thought I'd share some basic insights on how to prepare. I didn't think anyone needed to be told some of these things, but all of this I've...

This is the time for self-discovery. We all have this amazing opportunity to take a step back, evaluate our lives and truly see what's important. What have you always wanted to do but never had the time for? Running a marathon, creating cutting-edge sculpture, writing a collection of short stories, baking artisan bread? Now's the time to make those...

Two singer colleagues asked me to join them to make music in the time of corona, and yesterday we recorded Stabat mater by Pergolesi. We're publishing it on YouTube as an Easter offering. I'd never heard this Stabat mater before we started rehearsing (shocking, I know) and I thought it would be fun. It was. Here's what I learned in the process:...