Tampere Guitar Festival | 4-12 June 2016.
Tampere welcomes an impressive array of international and local guitar virtuosos and enthusiasts to the city for the 12th Tampere Guitar Festival, which will run from Saturday the 4th until Sunday the 12th of June.
From humble beginnings, the Tampere Guitar Festival has developed into one of the most significant festivals of its kind, not just in the Nordics but in all Europe. For the 12th edition the festival’s director, Tomi Tolvanen, has once again gathered some of the finest talents in the world to join with local artists to provide a packed programme. As usual, the Tampere Guitar Festival will provide a variety of concerts alongside a daily schedule of courses, workshops, lectures and master classes. Over half of the events in the educational side of TGF are free, and as usual a great many of them are geared towards younger guitar enthusiasts in the Festival’s continued efforts to make this most versatile of instruments interesting and vital to the next generation of talent.
The concerts range in style from classical to fingerstyle, covering world music, jazz, fusion, and Argentinian tango. Although the main concerts take place in Tampere Hall, the majority of concerts take place in numerous churches, and in bars and music clubs, not only in Tampere but also in Nokia, Kangasala, Pirkkala, and Mänttä.
Tampere Guitar Festival 2016 kicks off with a performance by Hungarian guitarist Tom Lumen in Bar Paapan Kapakka on Saturday 4th at 9pm. A great entertainer with a knack for storytelling, Tom is known for comfortably connecting with his audience, as well as for being a remarkable solo guitarist. Tom’s charming personality and joyful stories instantly engage the audience, and his performances are characterized by intimacy and interaction, as well as virtuosity and cheerfulness. He plays a second concert in Telakka on the 10th, at 10pm.
Romanian guitarist Bogdan Mihailescu is a an exceptional young talent who has been invited to play in festivals in France, Romania, Spain, Portugal, Australia, Argentina, and Mexico. When Bogdan won the 2014 International Guitar Festival in Jose Tomas, one of the prizes awarded was a concert at Tampere Guitar Festival. You can see him perform on Monday the 6th in Pispala Church at 6pm, and on the following night in Knuutila Manor House at 7pm.
Italian guitarist Emanuele Buono has won over 40 significant national and international competition awards, including the gold medal in the prestigious Parkening Guitar Competition. His first concert at TGF is the result of winning the Michele Pittaluga Guitar Competition. One of the most active guitarists of his generation, Emanuele performs twice, on Tuesday the 7th in Finlayson Church, and on the 8th in the Old Church in Pirkkala, both concerts take place at 7pm.
On Thursday the 9th of June the Kangasala Arts Centre hosts an unconventional dramatic-recital by Canadian mezzo-soprano, actress and director Debi Wong, accompanied by Otto Tolonen and Mikko Ikäheimo. The Winter of Our Discontent combines texts by Shakespeare with the music of Hans Werner Henze, John Dowland, Thomas Campion and Robert Johnso. The recital conjures the spirits of Lady Macbeth, Juliet, and Richard III, to blur the boundaries between the historical and the contemporary, the musical and the dramatic, the real and the imaginary. The concert begins at 7pm.
Born in Khabarovsk, Russia in 1990, Arthur Bochkivskiy is one of the most remarkable young guitarists of his generation in Russia. Well known as a soloist, Bochkivskiy is regularly welcomed to perform together with symphony and chamber orchestras, and is also a member of the Russian group Trio Pal Mundo who also perform at the Tampere Guitar Festival. A previous winner of the “Young Talents in Russia” competition, Arthur performs in Tampere Old Church on the 10th at 7pm.
You can also see Arthur Bochkivskiy perform in Trio Pal Mundo, which combines the talents of three famous musicians, Bochivskiy on glassical guitar, Vladimir Shalnev on bass, and Cuban percussionist Yoel Gonzalez. The band is at the forefront of the crossover scene and executes complex multifaceted music marked improvisatory diversity and virtuosity of all its members. Trio Pal Mundo perform on Friday the 10th in Telakka at 10pm, and Saturday the 11th at the Rajaporti Sauna at 4.30.
On Friday the 10th at 7pm, Tampere Hall will host one of the greatest classical guitarists of our time, Ricardo Gallén from Spain. Renowned for his highly acclaimed solo recitals throughout Europe and America, and for his performances in concerts under the direction of well-known conductors. Ricardo has also recorded work for state radio and television all over the world, as well as four CDs for Naxos.
The next performer to visit Tampere Hall is Hopkinson Smith, widely regarded as the most moving of present day lutenists, whosr approach to the lute embodies a musicality which goes far beyond the seemingly limited voice of his instrument. Hopkinson Smith studied lute and vihuela with world renowned Spanish classical guitarist Emilio Pujol. With his recitals and series of over 20 solo recordings, he continues to rediscover and bring to life works that are among the most expressive and intimate in the entire domain of early music. His performance is in the afternoon of Saturday the 11th, at 2pm.
At 5pm on Saturday the 11th, Tampere Hall welcomes the hot talent Duo Mirta Álvarez & Fabián Carbone from Argentina, playing passionate tango by composers like Astor Piazzolla, Aníbal Troilo and Roberto Grela. The duo combines one of the most authentic tango guitarists, Mirta Álvarez, and bandoneon virtuoso Fabián Carbone, who was born into a family of tango musicians in Buenos Aires. They perform an afternoon concert on Sunday the 12th in Serlachius Museum Gösta, in Mänttä.
The final concert in Tampere Hall is on Saturday the 11th at 8pm, when it welcomes American virtuoso Stanley Jordan. Over the course of a critically acclaimed career that began in the mid ’80s, Stanley has consistently shown himself to be open to new ideas, displaying noticeable imagination, versatility and daring in his recordings and concerts. Whether the audience gets to enjoy his soulful explorations in pop music, his jazz forays and improvs, or his bold reinventions of classical masterpieces, this will be a concert of the unexpected. Key to Jordan’s fast-track acclaim was the mastery of his innovative “touch technique”, an advanced form of two-handed tapping.
From Finland there will be a wide range of guitar professionals such as Otto Tolonen, Mikko Ikäheimo, Petri Kumela, Janne Malinen, Ismo Eskelinen, Pauli Talvitie, Andrzej Wilkus and Kimmo Kiviniemi.
The entire program can be found at www.tgf.fi
Tickets in advance: Concert tickets from 16,49€, passes from 72€. Official Ticket Link
