The 2024 SOLA festival lineup has been revealed!

FB event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1044787200653164 & website: https://solafestival.fi/

I think we got together an interesting lineup with pretty limited means (with just a small grant from the Helsinki City). We organize the festival with the Välirivi ry non-profit association, of which I have been the chairperson since the beginning. We actually registered the association in December 2014, so pretty close to our 10 year anniversary!

Quite a lot of free labor I have worked for the festival throughout the years, but I guess it’s enjoyable enough in its own way, so I’m sure the festival will continue:)

Here a copypaste from the info blurb I wrote:

“SOLA festival 2024

The yearly festival for experimental music and moving image lands on the speakers and screens of WHS Teatteri Union again, already for the 9th time!

This year the moving image program will focus on the pioneering Scottish filmmaker / poet / doctor Margaret Tait (1918-1999). We will show a selection of her works from the early 50s to late 70s, six different short films that she referred as ”film poems”. Tait stands out as one of Scotland’s most innovative and stridently independent filmmakers.

We will also screen renowned British artist Luke Fowler’s experimental film ”Being in a Place – A Portrait of Margaret Tait” (2022). The film is a portrait of Tait’s beloved Orkney, the place she lived and filmed for most of her life, as much as it is about her.

The moving image program concludes with the expanded cinema performance Warm Data by Natalia Kozieł-Kalliomäki with music composed by Jonna Karanka.

The music program of SOLA 2024 fuses together the different worlds of acoustic and electronic experimentation: the Canadian Oslo-based composer Mike McCormick’s audio processing of the double bass of Mikael Saastamoinen, Mercedes Krapovickas’ traditional bandoneon instrument and electronics form urban sound textures, Luke Lund’s tectonic aural shifts from the electric guitar and computer processing, Katrin Enni’s manipulation of sculptural sounding objects, Essi Hirvonen’s thematic concert ”The Saints” on the double bass, the microscopic (and multichannel!) experimental electronics of Atte Elias Kantonen and Maja Jantar’s extended vocal techniques!

The full line-up and detailed descriptions can be found from our website:
https://solafestival.fi/

Tickets:
Friday 1.11. 15e
Saturday 2.11. 15e
Friday & Saturday 25e

Discount tickets (for students, unemployed, pensioners etc). Friday 10e & Saturday 10e

Tickets available from:
https://teatteriunion.fi/elokuva/sola-festival-2024/

The festival takes place at WHS Teatteri Union, Helsinki Finland – Friday & Saturday, 1st and 2nd of November, 2024, 18 – 22.30.

The festival is supported by the Helsinki City – Culture & Leisure Division and organised by the non-profit Välirivi ry with collaboration of WHS Teatteri Union.

—-
Friday 1.11.
18->
Luke Fowler: Being in a Place – A Portrait of Margaret Tait (DCP, 61 min, 2022)
Essi Hirvonen
Mercedes Krapovickas
-intermission-
21->
Natalia Kozieł-Kalliomäki, expanded live cinema performance Warm Data
Luke Lund
———————————————
Saturday 2.11.
18->
Margaret Tait films I (DCP)
Mike McCormick & Mikael Saastamoinen
Katrin Enni
-intermission-
21->
Margaret Tait films II (DCP)
Maja Jantar
Atte Elias Kantonen
”

Warmly welcome!