PEDAGOGICAL WORK

MY PEDAGOGICAL OUTLOOK

Pedagogical activities are an important platform for dialogue that can further our appreciation of ourselves, others and the contexts in which we all exist. This needs to happen within a framework of awareness, equality and respect.

I promote long-term learning processes that are open to creative impulses from many angles. The outcome should reflect the process, and vice versa.

In my students I wish to encourage the faculties of critical thinking. It is important to base our subjective and instinctive responses on factual information and to avoid clichéd shortcuts.

MY PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIENCE

LONG-TERM ENGAGEMENTS

As part of my research on Cornelius Cardew’s The Great Learning at University of the Arts I lead a study group in monthly meetings. We discuss and workshop various musical, theatrical, philosophical and conceptual materials. The project started in 2020 and ends in December 2024.

In 2022–2024 I conduct a series of experimental music workshops with Rauma Youth Band. The intention is to – through the study of repertoire by Ablinger, Cage, Knowles, Shiomi, White and others – to prepare for creating and recording the music for the experimental documentary film Fata morgana.

In 2022 I formulated an open call for composers for creating and presenting a new compositional work. I had received a prize from Finnish Composers’ Society that I decided to view as a commission itself. The call consisted of establishing an open work group that would – alongside making a new work – need to assume the task of defining (1) what a composition is and (2) how a composition ought to be presented. I wished to provide critical viewpoints to the conventional social and economic hierarchies between composers, performers and listeners of music. The results were examined at the 14th Kallio New Music Days.

I teach at Sibelius Academy since 2008. Between then and 2019 I formulated and taught an experimental course in new music performance practice. I’ve also acted as examiner and supervisor for doctoral and masters projects at SibA and Academy of Fine Arts.

Between 2006 and 2009 I taught the cello at Vantaa music school and music theory at Helsinki YMCA.

COURSES, LECTURES, WORKSHOPS, PRESENTATIONS

lecture–recital: “How to keep one’s head in the presence of a tiger – learning together in experimental music”
Sibelius Academy Research Days, March 2024

workshop on experimental cello repertoire and technique
Guildhall School of Music and Drama, November 2023

lecture: “Instrument as sound sculpture”
Academy of Fine Arts, March 2023

workshop on Cornelius Cardew’s Treatise
Kone Foundation, October 2022

course: “Site-specific studies in sound art”
Academy of Fine Arts, September–November 2023

presentation: “Contemporary music performance as a socially inclusive practise”
Barenboim–Said Academy, June 2022

workshop on Cornelius Cardew’s Schooltime Compositions
Tampere University, March 2022

workshop on Still and moving lines of silence in families of hyperbolas by Alvin Lucier
Theatre Academy, September 2021

lecture: “Something, nothing, everything, anything – latent forces as a starting point for composition”
Theatre Academy, September 2021

lecture: “Tulkinnanvaraista: a dramaturgical approach to presenting avantgarde music concerts”
Ostrava Days Festival, August 2021

workshop on Scratch Orchestra’s Nature Study Notes
Research Pavilion @ University of the Arts Helsinki, July 2021

lecture: “Straight and curved lines in the musics of Peter Ablinger, Phill Niblock and La Monte Young”
Studio Grönholm–Nisunen–Vuokola, May 2021

lecture: “Avantgarde art as a tool for learning”
Taidekoulu MAA, April 2021

lecture: “Time, temporality and eternity – Zeno’s three paradoxes of motion”
Espoo Mental Health association, April 2021
Theatre Academy, March 2021

workshop on differences and similarities between composition and improvisation
Sibelius Academy, November 2020
Sibelius Academy, October 2020

lecture: “Features of musical minimalism” (with Pauliina Hulkko)
Aalto University, November 2020
Theatre Academy, March 2019

workshop on Tom Johnson’s Rational melodies
Sibelius Academy, March 2020

lecture: “Minimalist, reductionist and maximalist tendencies in the music of Gavin Bryars”
Sibelius Academy, October 2019

workshop on John White’s machine music
Sibelius Academy, October 2019
Tampere University, September 2019

experimental music workshop
Vilnius Art Academy, March 2019

workshop on improvisation
Kindergarten Viidakkorumpu, January 2019

course: Tim Parkinson’s opera Time with people
Theatre Academy, January 2019

workshop on tuning just intonation intervals
Ostrava Days Festival, Aug 2019
Sibelius Academy, Oct 2018
MicroFest Helsinki, March 2014

lecture: “Noise, entropy and sound art”
Sibelius Academy, November 2018
Vilnius Art Academy, November 2018

course: music by Peter Ablinger and Luigi Nono
Sibelius Academy, October–November 2018

workshop on John Cage’s Speech 1955
Tampere University, September 2018

workshop on Morton Feldman’s notational practises
Sibelius Academy, February 2018

workshops on Christian Wolff’s Microexercises
Sibelius Academy, November–December 2017
Tulkinnanvaraista, September 2016

lecture: “Some recent music composed in Finland”
Tehran University, April 2017

presentation: Tristan Perich’s Formation
Sibelius Academy, February 2016

presentation: Phill Niblock’s Disseminate
Sibelius Academy, September 2015

lecture: “On my recent compositions”
Janacek Conservatory, Ostrava, August 2015
Brno Music Academy, November 2014
Sibelius Academy, January 2014

workshop on Terry Riley’s In C
Sibelius Academy, December 2014

workshop on Alvin Lucier’s Music for pure waves, bass drums and acoustic pendulums
Sibelius Academy, November 2014

workshop on improvisation
Brno Music Academy, November 2014

lecture: “A manifesto of sounding”
YLE Radio 1, June 2014
Sibelius Academy, Kuopio, November 2013

workshop on Alvin Lucier’s Music on a long thin wire
Sibelius Academy, November 2013

lecture on Morton Feldman’s Patterns in a chromatic field
Sibelius Academy, December 2012

workshop on contemporary string instrument techniques
University of Cork, November 2012

workshops on improvisation
Kemijärvi Music School, February 2012
Helsinki Conservatory, February 2010
Viitasaari Time of Music, July 2009

workshops on contemporary solo and chamber music performance
Kokkola, Kuopio and Oulu conservatories in 2007–2010

OTHER PEDAGOGICAL ACTIVITIES

over 100 pre-concert talks at Tulkinnanvaraista events
since 2010, ongoing

“An introduction to tuning just intonation intervals”
Foreword to the playing score of Juhani Nuorvala’s Boost for cello and synthesizer
Fennica Gehrman, 2016