Having its 16th edition this January, Kallion nykymusiikkipäivät (“Kallio Contemporary Music Days”) is a well-kept tradition among the experimental music communities in Helsinki.

Experimental music is a term that loosely refers to a musical genre. Instead of a stylistic definition, it is shaped by a local context and sustained through the ongoing practices of listening, exchange, and presentation.

From 16 to 18 January, beloved gems of avant-garde were presented in Kallio, the authentic cultural heart of Helsinki. Organised by Tulkinnanvaraista, musicians from Naarmu and UMUU ensembles shared the three nights together with the audience members at subculture centre Pertin Valinta.

Avant-garde is the blurred boundary where experimental music and performance art intersects. The first day of the festival presented a diverse repertoire of the 60s, 70s and new avant-garde music, which challenged or even alienated the audiences, in a way how the musical elements were created and found, and how those materials were utilised in the composition.

While watching the performances, I was curious about what kind of scores the performers were referring to – score being a sacred token of music tradition and at the same time deconstructing it with a critique of existing aesthetic conventions. The question arose on my mind – what is the agency of composition in this experimental practice?

The answer came out during the piece Platforms by Simone Forti, the developer of postmodern dance. Two performers enclosed themselves seperately within two cardboard boxes, and were only communicating through the sound they could sense.

While this was happening, a furniture truck arrived outside the venue. Beep, beep, beep. A delivery man carried out perhaps a smallest box one could ever imagine from such a gigantic truck – Poistamme huolesi (“we take away your worries”), said the big slogan on the truck.

Such chance-based aesthetics was pioneered by John Cage in avant-garde, where it could also be seen in the mise-en-scène of the festival. In this Kallio venue where the Hanasaari power plant is nearby, Juho Latinen staged his work Kraftverk (Homage à Sibelius) – a practical utility of music suggested by Jean Sibelius in the letter to his uncle in 1888, explaining his “experimental music” – a hexachord generated by different factories within a city, which would have a highly peculiar effect on humans and animals if it was constantly played for 100 years.

 

The composer’s task would be to compose pieces in which the vibration rate of the notes would be driven to the highest possible level. A profitable time for the musician!

 

The second day of the festival explored Karlheinz Stockhausen’s intuitive music. In Kultapölyvariaatioita (“Gold Dust Variations”), Juho Latinen invited the audience to join all performers to practice the three sections consitited of action, reflection, and contemplation, each time conducted in a different order.

Referencing to Stockhausen’s 1968 piece GOLDSTAUB which suggested melodies would arise from moments of silence and emptying of the mind, Latinen’s work felt to me was like a shared practice within the community. The three pre-planned events could happen in an occasion when a group of musicians perform together, especially in a group rehearsal.

Joining as an audience, I felt myself warmly welcomed by the two ensembles as a temporary member. Just like in a group rehearsal, the performer-spectator relationship would intertwine and exchange, and the spectatorship happened within the performance.

The different combinations of the three actions implies how trained musicians place their attention while rehearsing together, playing during a concert and giving feedbacks on the performance afterwards. The composition of Kultapölyvariaatioita has revealed such internal process of how a musical performance is being staged.

More composed music was performed on the last day, solo, ensemble and tape pieces spanning almost three hundred years. Among Juhani Nuorvala’s electronic etude, Kaija Saariaho’s visual art commentary Canvas, the performers revisited David Pocknee’s piece The obscure moon lighting an obscure world that they had performed on the first day. It was up to each performer’s own decision whether to continue with the performance or not by tossing a coin.

While chance is the composition, the composer’s agency is still present in the score by providing a clear order to the performers. Even though Pocknee announced that he quit composing and performing on 30 November, 2019 at KM28 in Berlin, his identity as a composer would never be withdrawn from the existing scores.

In the composition tradition, at the end of one piece, composers usually release the tension that has been accumulated – we take away your worries! As long as the performance is score-based, there is an unavoidable reign from the composer. In the experimental case of avant-garde, the agency of composition extends beyond performer’s score to the audience members, evoking a closer listening and self-observation of interconnectedness – Poistamme huolesi. Here comes musicality!

P.S. David Pocknee made his announcement of quiting as performing the piece“Jubal Died in the Flood”, followed by “Concerto pour la main droite (for Ivan)”. The Ivan was sitting right in front of me on the last day!

 

Kallion XVI nykymusiikkipäivät

Organised by Tulkinnanvaraista | 16-18.1.2026 | Pertin Valinta, Helsinki

Full programme