The beautiful dramatic arc drawn by saxophonist Jukka Perko’s versions of Finnish hymns and his series of church recitals have ran into the hearts of the audiences that have seen his Avara trio live. Faced with the fundamental issues of life, the men play in search of the beauty and truth of music and find themselves in places discoverable only via the art of getting lost. No matter how wild the versions get, there is always a sanctified core to that resists interpretation. It is what it is. Courage and humility, respect for tradition and the search for something new, scarcity and plenty, acoustic and electric – our traditional hymns receive a new and noble life as Avara explores these opposites.