The yearly gathering of young Nordic composers, the Ung Nordisk Musik (UNM) festival, will take the next generation of Finnish composers and works to Oslo, Norway on 20–24 August.

The selected seven composers from Finland vary in their backgrounds. The common denominator for all of the participants are studies at Sibelius Academy of Helsinki University of Arts.

Many of the composers have come from abroad to study in Helsinki. Libero Mureddu, Italian-French composer has a special interest in improvisation and music technology; his work at UNM, Movements in possible histories combines the two. The Romanian born Sebastian Dumitrescu (b. 1989) has equally long history in Finland, and his type of fusion includes jazz-rock along with impressionism and electroacoustic music. Another Romanian, Matei Gheorgiu (b. 1984) is an active figure in Helsinki’s contemporary music scene. The festival presents his work Sonata No. 2.

Several of the composers have already worked with international ensembles. For example, Lauri Supponen’s The Dordrecht Humaphone for a chamber choir with two soloists, was written for BBC Singers to be premiered at the 2012 Cheltenham Festival.  Sebastian Hilli’s (b. 1990) Delta and Sauli Zinovjev’s (b. 1988) Nova have been written for the Danish group Esbjerg Ensemble. Matti Heininen’s Für Elisa is a solo violin work written for Elisa Järvelä.

UNM is arranged annually with each of the participating countries hosting in turn. Seven young composers from each Nordic country are selected for the programme.

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