Finnish jazz makes landfall in London in November

London Jazz Festival hosts nine Finnish performers

Verneri Pohjola

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This year’s London Jazz Festival, which advertises itself as the largest music festival in town, will stage an exceptional amount of Finnish jazz talent in November.
      The Scene Finland segment of the festival includes performances by the Verneri Pohjola Quartet, Oddarrang, Black Motor, Rakka, Kuára, the Anna-Mari Kähärä Orchestra, Trio Iro Haarla-Trygve Seim-Ulf Krokfors, plus the Juhani Aaltonen Quartet.
      Finnish jazz pianist Iiro Rantala will also arrive in London invited by the organisers, and Mikko Innanen will make an appearance on the Jazz On 3 radio programme.
      The London Jazz Festival will announce its entire concert programme today, Tuesday, in London.
     
The Scene Finland segment has been put together by Annamaija Saarela’s Annamaija Music Company and the festival’s organiser, production company Serious.
      The segment is part of the Finnish music export organisation Music Finland’s British spearhead project 2012-2013, the total investment for which runs to EUR 900,000.
      The project is funded by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Finnish Performing Music Promotion Centre ESEK, and the Foundation for the Promotion of Finnish Music LUSES.
      The Finnish music industry businesses are sponsoring the effort to the tune of more than EUR 400,000.
      Music Finland is a new player in the music exports business. It unifies the activities of Music Export Finland and the Finnish Music Information Centre FIMIC under one name.
      “A big ‘thank you’ for putting together such an imposing organisation goes to Annamaija Saarela and her networks”, says Henna Salo of Music Finland.
      Saarela, who has previously been in charge of the UMO Jazz Orchestra as well as the Tampere Jazz Happening, is the sitting President of the Europe Jazz Network.
     
The London Jazz Festival 2012 will take place on November 9th-18th.
      The happening was launched in 1992 to fill the void left by the Camden Jazz Festival, a previous London-based jazz happening, which had operated since the 1970s.
      The new festival quickly grew much larger than its predecessor had ever been.
      The total number venues included in this year’s London Jazz Festival stands at 60. Finnish jazz artists will perform in the freestage events at the South Bank Centre as well as on the Freestage of the Barbican Centre, among other places.


Links:
  London Jazz Festival
  Europe Jazz Network
  Iiro Rantala (Wikipedia)

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