The United States’ best-known music conservatory, the Juilliard School, is expanding its collaboration with the Sibelius Academy. The Helsinki conservatory is its only European partner besides London’s Royal Academy of Music.
On Friday, composer Velimatti Puumala sat in the Helsinki Music Centre’s nearly-empty main hall and watched as conductor Susanna Mälkki rehearsed a student ensemble.
It includes students from both sides of the Atlantic, for whom the situation is unique in more ways than one, says Ara Guzelimian, dean of the Juilliard School.
"If a composer like Jukka Tiensuu is here for a rehearsal, he can stop and say 'I had a little more this in mind'. And for the musicians, that's an incredible education. That's a priceless education. Because it's one thing to look at black and white on the page and another to simply ask the composer," says Guzelimian.
Going to the source
The Manhattan-based school has selected two European academies as partners: the Royal Music Academy of London and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Guzelimian says that Juilliard directors’ interest has been piqued by Finnish contemporary composers such as Magnus Lindberg and Kaija Saariaho, who have a high profile in US serious music circles.
"And where did they all go to school? They went to the Sibelius Academy,” he notes. “So of course it's of very great interest for us to come to the source of this extraordinary, outstanding musical tradition that exists in Finland."
The cooperation began several years ago, led by Guzelimian and Professor Gustav Djupsjöbacka, a pianist who was rector of the Sibelius Academy from 2004 until last year.
Djupsjöbacka says that part of the aim is to raise North American awareness of Finland’s up-and-coming composers and performers. This year an orchestra featuring students from the two music academies has been assembled to perform work by American and Finnish contemporary composers in both countries.
Spotlighting lesser-known names
“We have to include some of these lesser-known Finns,” says Djupsjöbacka. “That’s why this concert does not feature Magnus Lindberg or Kaija Saariaho, who have been well represented in New York otherwise, but rather Puumala and Tiensuu.” Lindberg was Composer-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic from 2009 to 2012.
The two schools’ collaborations so far have been so harmonious that the Juilliard now wants to deepen the partnership. One focus will be on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Jean Sibelius. Finland's best-known composer was born on December 8, 1865.
"You don't have to be literally speaking the same language verbally, but we can still make some kind of art out of it collectively," mused Juilliard School violinist Ken Hamao at Friday's rehearsal.
The joint ensemble first performed at New York’s Lincoln Center last March. Its only Finnish performance is at the Helsinki Music Centre on Saturday August 24 as part of the Helsinki Festival.