Projects
Taidenaiset
Taidenaiset – Artswomen is a project which pianist Maija Väisänen started in 2021, as she left Helsinki for a sabbatical year in Hamburg. The concept is to bring out music composed by women as well as interesting female artists. The project consists of three elements: concert programs focusing on piano and chamber music by female composers, a podcast discussing life and art with interesting women from different fields of the art world, and a blog which allows Maija to write about thoughts provoked by the project as well as her everyday experiences of life in Hamburg. The blog and the podcast are only available in Finnish – so far!
Poulencin Pianokamarissa
In this concert series pianist Maija Väisänen performs all of the piano chamber music works composed by French composer Francis Poulenc. The composers personality and the atmosphere of the artist circles of Paris in the first half of the 20th century are explored through excerpts from Poulenc’s texts and letters.
The first performance of the series took place in Helsinki in 2019-2021 with two concerts, for which Maija invited a group of excellent Helsinki based musicians to play with her. In the future, Maija is planning to continue performing Poulenc’s piano chamber works and diving deeper into the early 20th century Parisian art world.
Villa Salmenrannan Kesäkonsertit
Maija Väisänen is one of the artistic directors of Villa Salmenrannan Kesäkonsertit – music festival since 2019 when the festival was founded. The festival is organized in Oulu, Northern Finland in July in a beautiful countryside milieu by the sea, just 10 minutes from the city center. Villa Salmenranta is a salon, where top Finnish musicians perform piano music, chamber music, lied and opera. The piano is present in every concert, and it is also the instrument of both artistic directors, pianist Maija Väisänen and lied- and opera pianist Markus Vaara.
More news about the festival on https://www.concertoulu.fi/ or the organizing associations facebook page.
Flyygelikuu
Flyygelikuu is a piano music focused concert series that takes place in Vuotalo culture center in eastern Helsinki. Maija Väisänen has been the artistic coordinator of the series since 2019. The series presents a wide variety of piano repertoire and top performers (not forgetting the rising young talents!) in an approachable way – the series takes place in the lobby of Vuotalo, where the audience can either settle in to listen to the whole concert or pop in for a moment free of charge.
Nordic Pop-Up Art Club
Nordic Pop-up Art Club is a concert series designed by Maija Väisänen that takes place in St Pauli, Hamburg. The concert series is carried out together with Nordic Breakfast and aims to present Nordic culture to a Hamburg audience in a relaxed environment. The concept consists of short concerts, small exhibitions and relaxed get-togethers with Nordic delicacies.