The Helsinki Festival is to have a new Director. The festival's Board has appointed theatre director Erik Söderblom to the position, effective from May 1st of this year.
He will take responsibility for the artistic planning and management of the festival organisation.
Söderholm, 50, moves to the Helsinki Festival from the Theatre Academy, where he is currently Vice-Rector and Professor of the Swedish-Language Acting Department.
At the same time he has been active as a theatre and opera director in Finland and abroad.
Söderblom takes over from Risto Nieminen, who has led the festival since 1997, and who will be moving on to head the music section at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal.
Nieminen has already planned the programme for this year's two-week event in August , and so Söderblom will be turning his eyes to 2010.
We shall return to this subject in a larger article and interview in our weeklies next Tuesday.
