Jazz Finland Live

Guitarist, Arabic ‘ud player and composer Jussi Reijonen’s new work sayr offers an intimate, meditative counterpoint to his acclaimed 2022 large-ensemble work Three Seconds | Kolme Toista.

Performed on vintage steel-string acoustic guitar and Arabic ‘ud, sayr is an improvised exploration of the small, the simple and the sparse; the rugged earthy; the gnarly unpretty; and most of all, of memories of roots and branches; of bare feet in soil; and of paths less – or differently – predetermined.

Rooted in a metaphorical reframing of the concept of “sayr” as found in Arabic music — a musical pathway or unfolding—, this solo performance becomes a spontaneous exploration through an memory palace of sound: a pathway of memory recalled and reimagined through music.

Using a set of pre-composed musical gestures as “loci” or touchstones—like rooms in a memory palace—Reijonen navigates freely between them, letting memories surface through the sounds themselves. Each gesture becomes a portal, triggering emotional and sensory echoes shaped by his life across Northern Finland, Jordan, Tanzania, Oman, Lebanon, and the United States.

Photo: Ville Tanttu

The concert is supported by City of Helsinki, Svenska Kulturfonden and The Finnish Music Foundation.

Open event

Mikko Hassinen Future Food Factory will perform on the Finnish Jazz Federation tour in Kotka, Kuopio, Oulu, Savonlinna, and Jyväskylä. The program features music from the ensemble’s debut album, reflecting the complex relationship with nature of award-winning percussionist and composer Mikko Hassinen.

Percussionist and composer Mikko Hassinen has returned to small ensemble music, inspired by his youthful and highly skilled band. The broad and layered wind orchestration of his earlier compositional work, the Espoo Big Band album Blood Red, transforms on the Future Food Factory debut into an intimate and focused interplay of a small collective, where acoustic jazz is infused with an electric layer.

To mark the Jazz Federation tour, Flame Jazz Records will release Hassinen’s new Future Food Factory solo album Anemoia on April 10. The material was created entirely in Hassinen’s home studio. The album centers on the concept of anemoia, a nostalgia for something never experienced.

Open event