The Covid 19 pandemic has been a sudden shock, where calendars full of concerts have been cancelled and rehearsing with colleagues stopped. Though it has caused enormous economic problems for artists everywhere, it has also been a moment to have space and time for practicing, regrouping and considering what is really important. Here at the Tampereen Vanhan Musiikin Ystävät, Covid 19 has been a moment to take a deep breath and plan new programs and explore new venues with hopes for a better future. To clarify, let us first look at what the main activities of our society are.
– Organizing and funding Café Barock Tampere. (Normally 7-9 concerts per year) http://tampereenvanhanmusiikinystavat.blogspot.com
– Advertising early music concerts happening in our region to our members as well as a small ticket reduction to concerts supported by us or our collaborators. We can be contacted here: info@vanhamusiikinystavat,
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vanhanmusiikinystavat
– Cooperating and networking with Pirkanmaa cultural life as well as reaching out internationally.
– Organizing early music workshops.
– We are in partnership with SKR and Pirkanmaan musiikkiopisto in relationship to the Kennedy harpsichord. We are in charge of the bookings for it:
skr.pirkanmaa.cembalo@gmail.com
TVMY also supports early music by seeking funding and concert possibilities for the ensembles under its umbrella. These ensembles are:
Fioretto – Founded in 1996, a professional early music ensemble that expands and contracts according to the program and repertoire. The basic members at present are Janek Öller – recorders and bagpipe, Ilpo Laspas -harpsichord and organ, Mikael Heikkil ä- percussion, Debra Gomez-Tapio – harp, voice and director.
Lumous – a professional vocal ensemble directed and founded by Debra Gomez-Tapio in 2007. The singers are, Anu Mattila, Kaisa Kelloniemi, Elina Aho-Kuusama and Lauri Solin. The repertoire ranges from Early Medieval to Baroque. http://www.lumousensemble.com/
Cantus Alaudae – a professional vocal ensemble of 6-8 voices founded in 2017. The main repertoire is great vocal works of the late Renaissance and early Baroque. It is directed and founded by Debra Gomez-Tapio. https://www.facebook.com/Vokaaliyhtye-Cantus-Alaudae-106278134088769/
PirBa gathers together professional instrumentalists of the Pirkanmaa area which have specialized in the performance of early music and offer various types of concerts in the region. It is organized by Aira-Maria Lehtipuu.
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Covid 19 has forced our society to learn to efficiently meet online and perhaps be more organized in our meetings. The epidemic has also caused us to think on how we can serve our members when we can’t offer any concerts. We have begun updating our own YouTube channel with some of our own past concerts, especially those of our own ensembles. We intend to add links to other concerts that are available online or are being streamed, though we have not done it yet.
Our future plans are to sponsor more early music workshops that both serve professional level people as well as the general amateur and interested public. We have a beginning list of ideas and hope that when the dangers of this epidemic are over, we can begin offering them.
This autumn and next spring we are expanding our Café Barock concert happenings to three exciting venues: The original one at Kulttuuriravintola Kivi, then to G Livelab-Tampere and Vapriikki Museo. Each place has a great atmosphere and each one lends itself to particular concert types.
In this time, we have distributed our functions more effectively to our board members according to their experience, talents and interests. We have divided advertising and general communication, grant writing, etc. as well as clearly defining the duties of board titles.
Crises like this are always horrible, but they afford the chance of change and a renaissance of creativity. Finland has done a good job in getting this pandemic under control. We look forward to a joyous, post Covid time.
Debra Gomez-Tapio
Chairman of TVMY