UMO Jazz Orchestra celebrate its 40th anniversary this year by offering its audience a series of spectacular concerts: echoes from years past, some of the most sought-after soloists of the moment, loads of premieres of Finnish pieces and several visits to festivals both in Finland and abroad.
The year’s highpoints include a joint concert by UMO Jazz Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and legendary film composer and pianist Michel Legrand, vocalist Gregory Porter’s upcoming show with the orchestra, a concert with the Cuban-American legend, Grammy winner and Irakere founder Paquito D’Rivera, and the UMO’s anniversary concert series concentrating on Finnish music and archival treasures. Premieres will feature works by e.g. Iro Haarla and Mikko Perkola. Check out the spring programme on www.umo.fi/konsertit/
UMO Jazz Orchestra is a professional 16-piece orchestra that performs a wide variety of current and topical music ranging from jazz to soul and classical, bringing together old and new in a unique way.
Over the last four decades, UMO Jazz Orchestra’s consistently high quality artistic output has seen it rise to the top echelon of the international big band scene and made the band an inseparable part of the past, present and future of Finnish jazz. UMO Jazz Orchestra has always endeavoured to perform as much Finnish music as possible, and the orchestra’s repertoire includes hundreds of commissioned pieces.
Over one hundred musicians, composers, conductors and soloists work with the orchestra every year, which makes UMO the biggest employer of freelancers in the Finnish jazz scene. Over the years, basically all notable jazz musicians in Finland have played in UMO and the orchestra plays an important role as a practical education for many of the country’s most promising jazz and pop musicians.
Forty years holds within it countless legendary concerts, tours around the world, a Grammy nomination, a couple of legendary club venues in downtown Helsinki and dozens of recordings. UMO has played host to the crème de la crème of jazz from Dizzy Gillespie to Gil Evans, Michael Brecker, John Scofield, Natalie Cole and the vocal group Manhattan Transfer.