In addition to the Art Tester concerts, KPKO has invested in visits by top international soloists and conductors. The Art Tester concerts will continue next year.
Last year, the Central Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra’s audience numbers rose to the level of 2019, the year before the corona.
The total audience for last year’s live concerts was 19 943. This exceeds the peak audience for 2019 by a few hundred.
In addition, the total number of listeners for the three live streaming concerts was around 2,900.
– In 2021, the orchestra reached less than 7,000 listeners in its live concerts, and now that number has almost tripled.
Part of the number of listeners was influenced by the Taidetestaaja concerts, of which KPKO played a total of 16 songs in 2022. These concerts reached 5,400 eighth graders from the regions of Central Ostrobothnia, Ostrobothnia and North Ostrobothnia.
Art testers is a project funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and Svenska kulturfonden, with the aim of offering eighth graders 1-2 high-quality art visits per year.
– We always get a lot of praise for school and nursing facility concerts and, for example, pop-up visits in the city’s cafes: a moment of music makes us happy and relaxes in a busy everyday life, Puutio states in the press release.
The chamber orchestra is also producing Taidetestaaja concerts in the academic year 2023–24.
In addition, the high audience numbers are explained by the jubilee efforts of the orchestra, which celebrated its 50th anniversary; during the year several top international soloists and conductors visited Kokkola.