ShadowNova

Event Introduction

ShadowNova is a meeting place for the contemporary-music talents of the future, professionals, and the sheer pleasure of making music together.

Introduced at Musica nova some two decades ago, ShadowNova is a project aiming to serve as a platform for the composer generation of the future and a showcase for the teaching of composition at Finland’s Music Institutes. It is now being revived and updated to the 2020s.

Taking part in ShadowNova is a large band of Music Institutes in the Helsinki region. The Institutes were invited to enter composition students who will be spending the autumn months working on new pieces of their own with both their personal composition teachers and the professional players of the Zagros Ensemble. The project will culminate in performances of the finished pieces by the Zagros Ensemble at a concert on the first weekend of the festival.

Another major element of the ShadowNova project is the chamber repertoire composed for teaching purposes by professional Finnish composers and designed to establish a live contact between students of an instrument at an Institute, the world of contemporary music and ensemble playing. The Society of Finnish Composers has recently compiled a database of such repertoire written by Finnish composers, and samples will be performed at a ShadowNova concert by students at Music Institutes in the Helsinki region. The Society of Finnish Composers is also placing the database in the public domain via Music Finland Core.

The various components of the ShadowNova project in many ways tie in with the All Together theme of Musica nova 2025 examining the potential of interaction. ShadowNova is concrete evidence of the collaboration that exists between people of different ages and at different stages in their musical journey, of Finland’s fine Music Institute network, of interaction between composers, students and teachers, performers and audiences, of the mutual trust that is vital in making music together, and of unspoken, magical communication.

In co-operation & supported by:

Musica nova Helsinki, The Society of Finnish Composers, The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland

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