Vapaan Taiteen Tila

In this concert Teemu Mastovaara and Lauri Antikainen will play a program of music from Finland and Iceland written for electric guitar and cello by composers Sól Ey (IS), Teemu Mastovaara (FI) and Thorkell Nordal (IS/FI). The composers extend the instrumental force with live-electronics, visuals and self-made instruments to create soundscapes that meditate on the connection between the past and the present, and between the acoustic and virtual sound. Sól Ey’s version of the Liljulag – a notorious song that is possibly written by the devil himself to a text by a 14th century Icelandic monk – explores the traditional song in an arrangement for cello and live-electronics. Haldalda captures an artificial dialogue between acoustic and virtual sounds and light, each leaving its own traces, creating waves of echoes. Teemu Mastovaara’s Mardus is a collaboration with poet Krista Ojasaar. The piece explores old Estonian language through a story about time-traveling banshee with eerie and spooky soundscapes. The piece features the Eargasmatron, an instrument developed by Lauri Antikainen and can be described as an extended head massager which can be plucked and bowed. Thorkell Nordal’s new piece merges the sonic properties and cultural connotations of the cello and the electric guitar into a single sounding entity.