BAROKKIKUOPIO
early music festival in the heart of finnish lakeland
BarokkiKuopio in the woods. 2023 Kari Kohvakka.
BAROKKIKUOPIO 2025
jubilation/declaration
16th -20th july 2025
This year is one big party with our theme jubilation/declaration! 🎉📣
In 2025 BarokkiKuopio returns to the origins of the word ’festival’ with the theme Jubilation/Declaration! Accordingly, we will also celebrate the festival’s 21st and Kuopio city’s 250th anniversaries.
Who doesn’t enjoy a good party? Is music that proclaims something always loud? Why does returning to everyday life make one feel melancholic? Does sadness have a place in parties? What are the elements of celebratory rituals, and is there a musical equivalent to the sandwich cake always served at confirmation parties?
Music and art are perfect for bringing festivity to any occasion, but also subjects of celebration in themselves. The festival’s concerts celebrate the beauty produced by a specific composer, country or instrument, as well as the concert venue. The baroque trumpet of the Polish top musician Pawel Hulisz rings a festive fanfare, the orthodox church bells played by Vladimir Belov compete with the humane sound of Ilkka Heinonen’s jouhikko, and the backyard of the VB Photography Center turns into a garden party.
There would be no spectacle without the ordinary, so in between all the partying we must also have ’everyday’ concerts. We bring music to everyday life with our traditional coffee concerts by Kukamus and Café Barock, not to mention our ever-popular children’s concert. The brilliance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s music will be heard both in a meditative solo viola concert by Hanna Pakkala and in the St. John’s Church filled with rainbow-hued light, as Lev Berkovskiy plays the violoncello da spalla with the organist Irina Ala-Opas.
Alternation between partying and everyday life is important, and so is declaration. A proclaimer turns private into public, takes a stand and uses their voice to say, ”This is Important!” The concert of Ensemble Gamut! revolves around endangered flowers of the Arctic that linger between survival and extinction. Aino Peltomaa’s medieval flower-themes melodies run a dialogue with large-scale live drawings of the visual artist Vappu Rossi.
In the media-ridden digital environment we live in, many declarations can be unnecessary simplifications of complicated matters, so let us declare in full length! The festival’s final concert is a lengthy performance of English coronation anthems, such as Celebrate This Festival by Purcell. Performers include the Polish baroque trumpet virtuoso Pawel Hulisz, singers of the Bach Collegium Helsinki and the baroque orchestra of Ensemble Nylandia, conducted by the festival’s artistic director Matias Häkkinen. As always, the final concert will be repeated in Helsinki after the Kuopio festival, in the Suomenlinna Church on Tuesday July 22nd at 19:00.
Welcome to celebrate with us in July!
In 2025 BarokkiKuopio returns to the origins of the word ’festival’ with the theme Jubilation/Declaration! Accordingly, we will also celebrate the festival’s 21st and Kuopio city’s 250th anniversaries.
Who doesn’t enjoy a good party? Is music that proclaims something always loud? Why does returning to everyday life make one feel melancholic? Does sadness have a place in parties? What are the elements of celebratory rituals, and is there a musical equivalent to the sandwich cake always served at confirmation parties?
Music and art are perfect for bringing festivity to any occasion, but also subjects of celebration in themselves. The festival’s concerts celebrate the beauty produced by a specific composer, country or instrument, as well as the concert venue. The baroque trumpet of the Polish top musician Pawel Hulisz rings a festive fanfare, the orthodox church bells played by Vladimir Belov compete with the humane sound of Ilkka Heinonen’s jouhikko, and the backyard of the VB Photography Center turns into a garden party.
There would be no spectacle without the ordinary, so in between all the partying we must also have ’everyday’ concerts. We bring music to everyday life with our traditional coffee concerts by Kukamus and Café Barock, not to mention our ever-popular children’s concert. The brilliance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s music will be heard both in a meditative solo viola concert by Hanna Pakkala and in the St. John’s Church filled with rainbow-hued light, as Lev Berkovskiy plays the violoncello da spalla with the organist Irina Ala-Opas.
Alternation between partying and everyday life is important, and so is declaration. A proclaimer turns private into public, takes a stand and uses their voice to say, ”This is Important!” The concert of Ensemble Gamut! revolves around endangered flowers of the Arctic that linger between survival and extinction. Aino Peltomaa’s medieval flower-themes melodies run a dialogue with large-scale live drawings of the visual artist Vappu Rossi.
In the media-ridden digital environment we live in, many declarations can be unnecessary simplifications of complicated matters, so let us declare in full length! The festival’s final concert is a lengthy performance of English coronation anthems, such as Celebrate This Festival by Purcell. Performers include the Polish baroque trumpet virtuoso Pawel Hulisz, singers of the Bach Collegium Helsinki and the baroque orchestra of Ensemble Nylandia, conducted by the festival’s artistic director Matias Häkkinen. As always, the final concert will be repeated in Helsinki after the Kuopio festival, in the Suomenlinna Church on Tuesday July 22nd at 19:00.
Welcome to celebrate with us in July!
BarokkiKuopio focuses on early music in all its glory. The festival is held annually in July in Kuopio, eastern Finland.
Our approach is rooted in traditional early music performed with period instruments, though we also use all kinds of inventive, imaginative instruments and approaches. We also explore using period instruments to perform a wide variety of different musical genres, be it traditional early music, classical music from other eras or greatest hits from the 1980s.
In all our concerts we strive to find the essential spirit, style and message of the music at hand and aim to bring the audience the best possible performance from both traditional and sometimes distinctly untraditional perspectives.
BarokkiKuopios theme changes annually. In 2024, the theme was electricity / glamour, with exciting electroacoustic shows and a heavy dose of glitter. In 2023 our theme was nature / character (luonto / luonne). The program included an enchanting sound installation in the wild forest of Puijo, Pleasure Garden, by acclaimed australian artists Genevieve Lacey .
Our artistic director is harpsichordist and conductor Matias Häkkinen, who also leads BarokkiKuopio's main partner and orchestra-in-residence Ensemble Nylandia and coordinates Nylandia's Café Barock concert series. Our programmes include the very best of Finnish early-music performers, as well as internationally acclaimed artists and ensembles. We have had the pleasure to host artists such as Genevieve Lacey and her sound installation Pleasure Garden in 2023, The Royal Wind Music in 2019 and La Ritirata in 2018.
Our approach is rooted in traditional early music performed with period instruments, though we also use all kinds of inventive, imaginative instruments and approaches. We also explore using period instruments to perform a wide variety of different musical genres, be it traditional early music, classical music from other eras or greatest hits from the 1980s.
In all our concerts we strive to find the essential spirit, style and message of the music at hand and aim to bring the audience the best possible performance from both traditional and sometimes distinctly untraditional perspectives.
BarokkiKuopios theme changes annually. In 2024, the theme was electricity / glamour, with exciting electroacoustic shows and a heavy dose of glitter. In 2023 our theme was nature / character (luonto / luonne). The program included an enchanting sound installation in the wild forest of Puijo, Pleasure Garden, by acclaimed australian artists Genevieve Lacey .
Our artistic director is harpsichordist and conductor Matias Häkkinen, who also leads BarokkiKuopio's main partner and orchestra-in-residence Ensemble Nylandia and coordinates Nylandia's Café Barock concert series. Our programmes include the very best of Finnish early-music performers, as well as internationally acclaimed artists and ensembles. We have had the pleasure to host artists such as Genevieve Lacey and her sound installation Pleasure Garden in 2023, The Royal Wind Music in 2019 and La Ritirata in 2018.
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BarokkiKuopio was founded by gamba player Markus Kuikka in 2005, and it has been held in Kuopio every year since. From 2017 on the artistic director has been harpsichordist Matias Häkkinen, and the festival has expanded its collaboration with various local, national and international organisations, such as the city of Kuopio, Café Barock, Ensemble Nylandia, Kuopio parish and the Kuopio symphony orchestra. We are also a proud member of REMA, the European Early Music Network.
BarokkiKuopio is held annually in July and consists of five to six days of absolutely glorious music events. The festival is organised by a non-profit organisation BarokkiKuopion kannatusyhdistys ry with Tatu Ahola as the president of the board. The festival organisation includes Sanni Antikainen as the executive director and Noora Karjalainen as the head producer.
BarokkiKuopio is held annually in July and consists of five to six days of absolutely glorious music events. The festival is organised by a non-profit organisation BarokkiKuopion kannatusyhdistys ry with Tatu Ahola as the president of the board. The festival organisation includes Sanni Antikainen as the executive director and Noora Karjalainen as the head producer.
BarokkiKuopio Early Music Festival
Artistic director Matias Häkkinen
Executive director Sanni Antikainen
Contact us at [email protected]
Further organisation contact info here.
This is what we mean by " in the heart of Finnish lakeland". Kuopio is literally surrounded by beautiful lakes. Finland has thousands of them.
Picture by Kari Kohvakka 2022, taken from the Puijo Tower.
PAST FESTIVALS
BarokkiKuopio graphics, logos and posters by Mikko Puranen since 2018.
2023
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2022
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2021
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2020
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2019
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2018
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