Composer-musician, cultural guest Anna-Mari Kähärä wants women’s voices to be heard.
He is organizing a big Women’s Day concert at the Helsinki Music Hall.
It’s only a week away. Kähärä’s calendar is full of choir rehearsals, soloist meetings, scheduling and e-mails – general adjustment.
The music house must be sold out. If all 1200 tickets are sold, the performers’ fees can be paid from the box office revenue.
He has already succeeded in organizing a big concert once before, why not now. The last time was at Musiikkitalo exactly three years ago.
Many remember that the concert would have the ingredients of a story.
However, Kähärä asks:
– Could this thing be done before art? We don’t talk about the corona anymore.
\”The message is between the lines\”
Anna-Mari Kähärä’s own space is located in the corner of the bottom floor of a detached house in Helsinki. It is an important place of creation for him.
The room is full of records, books, boards and sheet music. There is also a piano here and compositions are created here.
When he sits down at the instrument, the bookshelf, especially his beloved poetry books, is a safety wall behind his back.
– The poems touch me deeply. They have always been important sources of songs, he says.
– Human life is not enough to compose all the great poems that have been made into this world.
Kähärä also wants to understand everything that is not said directly from the poets’ texts.
– The message is often right between the lines. So I try to hear and compose also between the lines, he says.
The most inspiring topics are philosophical reflections on life and profound texts about existence.
– Instinctively, I take on topics such as death, loss and loneliness, because they touch me personally.
\”Ringing in the head\”
Anna-Mari Kähärä rides a bicycle.
In the middle of the road, a melody plays. You have to stop pedaling and \”stop to record\”.
If he’s really in a hurry, he rides the bike with one hand and with the other he records his humming on the phone’s recorder.
– Composing is my calling. It rings in my head all the time and every day.
Already in my childhood home in Viitasaari in Central Finland it rang.
The teacher mother was musical. The daughter inherited something else from the father, who works as an entrepreneur.
– Speed \u200b\u200band creativity from my father.
Dad also taught that anything is possible. If you want, you can do anything.
Kähärä says many times how grateful he is for the encouragement and creativity he gets from home.
In Kähärä’s opinion, Finns should \”come out of their pots\”. There is no need to downplay or withhold competence.
– The sentence of the Finnish advocate of creativity is that everyone should focus on only one thing, that you should not start rambling.
– Go around, good person, if you like!
Anna-Mari Kähärä turned 60 a week ago and has followed her instructions herself.
A strong woman is also an introverted nanny
Anna-Mari Kähärä is often described as a strong woman and a force of nature.
The composer himself says that he is hard working, capable and easily inspired. But there are also darker shades behind.
– The blues are playing in the soul. As a composer, I have a minor key and there is melancholy in my music.
Also in the \”music of the heart\ i.e. jazz.
He recognizes in himself the two opposite sides of Chinese philosophy, the complementary Yin and Yang.
– When I’m composing, I’m a sad, introverted bitch huddled in the corner of the study.
– I’ve noticed that no matter what style of music I compose, blues is bound to come along.
Kähärä admits that this side is not necessarily visible in public.
When composing, he needs silence, and he can’t do without light.
– If there is eternal winter in the heart, you need external light and beauty. When the February light comes, I come alive.
A female lawyer’s soul sister
Anna-Mari Kähärä is nominated for the Jussi Award for the music she composed for the film *Armotonta menoa – hoivatyön lauluja* (2022).
In Kähärä’s opinion, many of Canth’s theses about women’s life and equality, written more than a hundred years ago, are still relevant.
Kähärä is clearly the soul sister of the writer and woman advocate who influenced the end of the 19th century. Minna Canth also wanted women to be able to work outside the home.
International Women’s Day is next Wednesday, March 8. The day is important to the composer.
– I am a feminist. I think all people should be.
For him, feminism means equality between the sexes. He reminds, for example, that equality between men and women is still not achieved.
– A woman’s euro is still 80 cents. We have to talk about this for so long that it is the same as men.
Kähärä says that only 2-3 percent of film music is composed by women.
– The music for films is mainly composed by men, and women are not often employed as composers.
She also calls for solidarity between women. It would be important for women to stick together and support each other. He himself wants to encourage his colleagues and highlight their skills.
Kähärä will host the Great Women’s Day celebration concert at the Helsinki Music Hall next Saturday. The name of the concert is *Voice is* *women!*
They perform music composed by Kähärä.
In addition, excerpts from the *Kysy siskoilta* musical will be heard.
– Laughter and cry. Big things about women’s lives.
Not a word about the corona anymore
Anna-Mari Kähärä’s first Women’s Day concert at the Helsinki Music Hall in 2020 was an artistic success.
Contrary to what the composer was worried about in advance, the tickets sold out and the performers received their due compensation for their work.
A few days after the concert, it became clear, and it was prominently reported in the media, that some of the audience and performers had been infected with the coronavirus.
– That’s why the concert got into the claws of the press, Kähärä recalls now.
He felt it was unreasonable, unfair and insulting.
He doesn’t want to go back to the atmosphere after the concert any more.
– It’s time to move on.
*International Women’s Day is March 8. Big women’s day celebration concert at the Helsinki Musiikkitalo on March 11, 2023.*
*You can discuss the topic until Monday 6.3. until 11 p.m.*