Jyväskylä.
Good ones news!
Jyväskylä Sinfonia got an even better temporary solution for its home when it moved from Teatteritalo to the other side of the track to the renovated hall of Jyväskylä Paviljong.
The city put 7.5 million euros into changes, such as the extension of the stage and the electronic Meyer Constellation acoustic architecture.
After the changes, the orchestra played about a zillion times better than in its former home, the acoustically dull Teatteritalo, as our review of the opening concert tells.
And now that too Alvar Aalton designed Teatteritalo will be renovated after decades of waiting.
It is an excellent continuation of last year, when the new part made between the museum building of the Central Finland Museum and the Alvar Aalto Museum united them under the same roof as the Aalto2 Museum.
Jyväskylä takes care of its cultural buildings!
Bad ones news! At the same time, Jyväskylä cut 180,000 euros from Jyväskylä Sinfonia operating subsidies, says the superintendent Emma Anttila.
That's roughly half of the amount that should be used to create the art after paying the musicians.
Therefore, one vacancy was frozen and the number of concerts will decrease slightly, although the symphony series will be kept unchanged.
Kaupunginteatteri, on the other hand, got its own escape rooms from Paviljon, but premieres are reduced and “personnel resources are optimized”, meaning that the theater's marketing manager was fired for cost-saving reasons. The administration will be eliminated anyway, because the city's culture manager has also been dismissed when the tasks are combined.
And that's not all.
The total cuts on the cultural side are about 1.8 million euros, while the total pot for culture is about 33 million euros.
In addition to reducing the activities of the symphony orchestra and the city theater, it means cuts to libraries, museums and open fields, for example.
Why is it always like this?
Political decision-makers are happy to chat at the opening of new facilities. But after that, the most important content, i.e. the content, can be cut without regret.
Investments are made in the walls, but the contents are cut.
The exterior of the pavilion is almost unchanged, but a concert hall with improved electroacoustics has been added.
In the background are of course more extensive savings.
Jyväskylä wants to save almost
20 million euros this year, and significant cuts will be made to, for example, basic education, early childhood education – and for exercise and culture.
“We've had to do a lot of hard work here”, the branch manager who planned cuts due to political decisions Eino Leisimo grant to HS.
“After all, we were the big losers in the creation of welfare areas. That is the underlying reason why Jyväskylä's operating economy is now being tried to cover a total of 45 million euros in three years.”
The chairman of the Culture and Sports Committee mentions the same reason Ari-Pekka Liukkonen (green).
“As a result of the Social Security reforms, we lost 20 million euros in annual state contributions. In addition, there are other financial pressures on municipalities.”
But it's also just about local political decisions.
“The cultural investments of the city of Jyväskylä don't rise very high when compared to other cities of the same size,” sighs Leisimo.
The current numbers of worms can be partially relativized when the comparison is made over a longer period of time.
Last year, additional money of 150,000 euros was found for the assistance package for cultural operators, especially targeting the free field, Leisimo and Liukkonen remind.
“When 175,000 euros were now cut from this aid package for cultural actors, it roughly means a return to the level of 2022,” Leisimo calculates.
Jyväskylä Sinfonia concertmasters Elias Lassfolk and Liisi Nuora-Kapanen thank the improved working conditions.
Take comfort it also means that Jyväskylä Sinfonia will benefit from the new hall in ways other than acoustic. Even those walls matter!
Previously, the orchestra rehearsed in a noisy and unsuitable space in the “vent” of a shopping center called Kolmikulma.
On the day of the concert, we switched to completely different, terribly dry theater acoustics.
Now, under normal circumstances, the orchestra can rehearse and perform in the same hall, which rationalizes the operation and raises the artistic level.
“This is a holiday. The hall is in a completely different class than the theater was,” says the concert master Elias Lassfolk.
Electric acoustics do not correspond to a real good concert space, but we can get close.
“You can play here like in a good hall. You don't have to forcefully press down, but you can really bring out the best details, tones and high-quality articulation”, describes Lassfolk.
“This is paradise compared to Teattertalo”, continues the 77-year-old conduct
or, who agreed to be the orchestra's main guest Ok Kamu.
Kamun pesti covers three concert programs, one of which is in the fall and the next two in 2025.
Okko Kamu is the new main guest of Jyväskylä Sinfonia. Lorenzo Passerini, who has recently received invitations from the best opera houses, such as Milan's La Scala, will start as chief conductor in the fall.
New the situation brings new challenges – and opportunities.
The city has budgeted for its orchestra a hefty 90,000 euro increase to the revenue target. It would have been completely impossible in the theater hall.
“In our 551-seat theater, our occupancy rate was one hundred percent according to North Korean standards,” superintendent Emma Anttila reminds us.
There were about 750 people at the opening concert of the now renovated Paviljong's 1,200-seat hall. At this rate, the orchestra's visitor records are beaten handsomely. Maybe the profit target can be approached.
When the parliament's “from Christmas gift money“I moved one hundred thousand euros for the orchestra to alleviate cuts at the municipal level, the situation is not hopeless at all.
But not ideal either, because the orchestra is still hoping for a real concert hall, where the help of electricity would not be needed.
“The history of Jyväskylä Sinfonia knows 24 concert hall plans, of which three good ones have been promoted in the 21st century,” says director Anttila.
During the pandemic and social security reform, it became clear that the dream will move again. However, Paviljonki offers a good temporary solution.
“Now we're focusing on getting the most out of the Encore hall,” says the superintendent, but at the same time, he envisions further.
“Jyväskylä is a lively city of cultural and sports events. Now we share the same hall with fairs, conferences and others. It is possible that a concert hall will be needed in a few years to bring all the events to Jyväskylä.”
The Meta4 quartet “conducted” works for string quartet and chamber orchestra at the Jyväskylä Sinfonia's opening concert without a separate conductor.
Let's get back for a moment to the oft-repeated claim that financiers of Finnish culture invest more in walls than in content. It also applies to Tanssi's house in Helsinki, for example, if additional resources for the contents are not available.
“I would say that Jyväskylä is trying to avoid this danger. That's why we pruned and combined so much of the administrative ladder”, says branch manager Leisimo.
On the other hand, when the “walls”, i.e. the facilities, are in order, it is also easier to turn content cuts into content growth, if there is political will.
Chairman of the Culture and Sports Committee Ari-Pekka Liukkonen I see two sides to the question.
“We haven't bumped into walls in decades. The renovation of the theater building was in the investment program for 20 years, but it was always postponed and postponed. The symphony orchestra has been trying for half a century to have its own music hall, and now it finally got its renovated space.”
But the walls of branch libraries are sacred to decision-makers, he criticizes. By closing a couple of libraries that are only open with very limited and underutilized use, more content would have been available elsewhere, he regrets.
Jyväskylä Sinfonia's new chief guest, Okko Kamu, was previously Sinfonia Lahti's chief conductor. In Lahti, the problem of content and walls has been taken care of, unlike in Jyväskylä.
Lahten the model comes to mind as a better example of dealing with the content and walls problem – at least when it comes to a symphony orchestra.
When it was concluded in Lahti in the 1980s that a symphony orchestra is in any case a significant investment, instead of a cheese grater it was decided to make the orchestra as good as possible.
It resulted in international recording awards, prestigious tour invitations, cheers as far as The New York Times, a new and smarter image of the city – and new walls, the Lahti Sibelius House, whose Sibelius Festival is visited by people from all over the world.
Is Jyväskylä the opposite of Lahti's successful example?
“It's not the opposite,” assures branch manager Leisimo
“We will do as much good as possible with the given resources, and our eyes are on the future. Now we have to combine our resources so that the creative buzz stays on as well as possible!”
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