For Jazz lovers, Finland offers a number of interesting venues and festivals. Here is an introduction of a few of the venues for Jazz in Helsinki and elsewhere in Finland.
April Jazz is one of the major Jazz festivals in Finland, it is held in Espoo next to Helsinki, and as the name suggests, it starts soon. Unfortunately, the web page is only in Finnish, but you will get a chance to practise Finnish. Instructions on how to get tickets to different cultural events will follow in a little while.
Some important actors in the field of Jazz in Helsinki are:
Restaurant Storyville, just next to the parliament, which according to their own ad is ranked among the best jazz clubs in the world. Cool, I didn’ t know that.
Emma Salokoski, who is one of the prominent jazz vocalists at the moment, is going to have a concert at Kapsäkki, in Vallila, on April 1st. Ticket prices are only 18 euros, so that’s an excellent opportunity to see a much liked artist in action.
UMO Jazz orchestra has a few concerts per month at different locations in the Greater Helsinki area, the link brings you to their concert calendar.
The Sibelius Academy students also have 1 – 2 concerts per month at the new Music House just opposite the parliament. The link should bring you to a list of the Jazz events in the events calendar of the new University of Arts. In the same calendar you can also find events by the drama school, academy of fine arts and other fields of music with different settings. Just in case it won’t work, here is a link to the calendar opening page University of arts calendar.
Cafe Fazer on Kluuvikatu 3, just off Aleksanterinkatu, also organises free jazz evenings about once a month together with the Pop & Jazz conservatory. The link shows you the program for this spring. The cafe offers plenty of goodies to choose from, but one thing you should definetly try is the tryffelijäätelö (truffle ice cream), which is still prepared according to the original recipe from 1891 by the founder Karl Fazer. Anything that continues to be successful for over a hundred years has to have something special to it.
The Pop/Jazz conservatory located in Arabia (not far from the city centre) also offers a lot of concerts but unfortunately their events calendar is not very informative.
Major festivals
Pori Jazz festival organised in mid July is the most important jazz happening of the year. It takes place in Pori, and the main concerts are open air events. On a beautiful day, it is absolutely gorgeous. If it rains, you get a chance to observe Finnish sisu and sense of humour at its best, i.e. the atmosphere will also be good, just make sure you stay warm. The program includes also a lot of indoor concerts for those who do not want to risk it. Definetly something to experience during your stay in Finland.
For people who like sailing, the Baltic Jazz, Ålandia jazz and Korpo Sea Jazz in July offer a relaxed, more small scale opportunity to enjoy jazz in the gorgeous Turku archipelago. Sailing in that area is also warmly recommended.
Some important artists
I haven’t had time to keep up with the latest developments of the Jazz scene, but here are a few ”classic” Finnish Jazz artists
Antti Sarpila
Emma Salokoski
Anna-Mari Kähärä
Johanna Iivanainen
Marzi Nyman
Jukka Perko & Severi Pyysalo
A good place to find more information on artists and events is the Jazz Finland site, though I noticed that some of the information may be outdated.
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