Jazz Finland Live

Laura Helander – sax, Mikko Antila – piano, Tatu Back – bass, Benjamin Nylund – drums

Pienet ihmiset isot puut (“Small humans big trees”) is a jazz quartet performing nature-inspired compositions. The ensemble’s compositions revolve around climate anxiety, sadness over biodiversity loss, and a love for nature. Their musical style is contemporary jazz with influences from Finnish folk music and schlager-style songs. In 2022, the ensemble published a studio live release titled Täällä oli kaunista kerran (It was beautiful here once), which was dedicated to cut-down forests.

Photo by: Otso Kauniskangas

Open event

Ilmari Heikinheimo – drums, percussion, flute, Adele Sauros – tenor and soprano sax, flute, Samuli Mikkonen – piano, Eero Tikkanen – double bass

Often regarded as Finland’s torchbearer of free expression and known for his involvement in several recent groups, drummer Ilmari Heikinheimo makes his composer debut in his first solo project titled Northern Garden, revealing his sensitive and lyrical side. The concert serves as an overture to his solo debut album which is set to be released soon.

Most of the album’s music was composed in late winter 2022 while Heikinheimo was living in Oslo. The composition’s thematic elements and central building blocks draw inspiration from Heikinheimo’s inner dialogue with his father who had passed away a year earlier and to whom the upcoming album is dedicated. Composed with feeling, the new work carries echoes of a life lived, of memories, and of reaching towards the future and into the unknown, all woven together into a retrospective soundscape travelling from childhood to today and beyond.

Photo by Francesco Saggio.

Open event

Anna Dantchev – vocals and tupan-drum, Erno Haukkala – trombone, Kenneth Ojutkangas – tuba and guitar, Antti-Pekka Rissanen – drums

The music of DANTCHEV:DOMAIN combines strong cinematic melodies and tight Bulgarian rhythms with full-bodied improvisations. Founded in 2019, DANTCHEV:DOMAIN showcases their distinct Finnish-Bulgarian groove, performing both in Finland and abroad. Anna Dantchev is a versatile and charismatic vocalist and composer whose songs draw inspiration out of life itself – its light and shadows. Dantchev’s unique singing style, which marries Bulgarian vocal techniques with the sensitivity of jazz, has already received international acclaim. The ensemble has released two albums: Say It (2020, Glomama Music) and The Lions We Are (2022, Glomama Music).

Photo: Maarit Kytöharju

Open event

Tickets 20 €

On Wednesday August 2nd the international guitar duo Olli Soikkeli & Cesar Garabini will take the stage at Kokkola Sea Jazz. The music they create together pulsates in the middle ground of gypsy jazz and choro music, creating a unique and interesting fabric that keeps the listeners in its grip.

In 2018 the internationally renowned Finnish gypsy jazz guitarist Olli Soikkeli formed a duet with the Italian-Brazilian master of choro Cesar Garabini, and since then they have toured throughout the United Stated and Europe to rave reviews.

Olli Soikkeli - guitar

Cesar Garabini - 7-string guitar

Open event

Tickets from Liveto or the Bosgård store in advance are €15 for adults, €10 for children
At the door: €20 adults, €15 children (under 7 free entry)
Ticket + homemade hamburger €30/€20 in advance

Héctor Lepe is a Mexican jazz guitarist based in Helsinki. His first release Pedro's Dream for Flame Jazz Records is his debut as a band leader and a composer. Most of the compositions are inspired by Mexican folklore and literature. Héctor Lepe Quartet manages to subtly blend in Latin-American musical elements and modern jazz compositions. The result being fresh music in which the band members own musical identity comes forward bringing the music to a new level.

The album’s title track Pedro's Dream is inspired by the book Pedro Páramo by a Mexican writer Juan Rulfo. The main character, Pedro, travels through south of Mexico in search for his father, and finds himself in a literal ghost town. The characters that he runs into change constantly, making it difficult to tell reality from the afterlife. The album submerges the listener in a deep journey within Mexican mystic tales and landscapes.

Open event