Pianist-composer Aurora Hentunen has spent long periods outside Finland, especially in the Netherlands, and her near future will also include stays abroad. A new album by Aurora Hentunen Quintet, Little Further, will be released in October.
What’s happening?
I am doing well! I have many different projects going on, and I like them all. I completed two albums in 2023, and now I am focusing on composing a new album and a symphony about the forest, which I’m working on full-time with a grant from the Kone Foundation. I spent three months in Paris during the spring-summer in residence, and the trip was really inspiring, both in terms of the city, its events and meeting other artists. I also got to play a few concerts in Paris.
You have studied and worked for long periods in the Netherlands. How has the change of country, culture, and language affected you as a musician and music maker? Did you find more of yourself in your new environment – or perhaps something about yourself that you didn’t know existed?
Leaving my home country had a huge impact. Studying and working abroad gave me opportunities that I wouldn’t have found in Finland, but also networking abroad is broader and more relaxed. Adapting to a new culture and changing language requires openness and perseverance, and it has taught me the art of being outside my comfort zone. It is still important to strive for this, and I am also developing faster outside my comfort zone. I learned to know and listen to myself better in a foreign country, which has perhaps helped me to get in touch with composition and take my music forward.
Living abroad is still important to me. It allows me to discover new sides of myself, get to know other arts better, and gain knowledge about different cultures and people’s backgrounds. These all contribute to the direction my music is taking.
Your third album with a band, Little Further, is now completed after an exceptionally long break, five years after the previous one. What significance do albums have for your music and musicianship, certainly not financially these times? Are the albums above all documents – and “calling cards” – of your life, or even goals for making music?
The rise of streaming has reduced record sales, making it risky to make records, especially for fringe music. After my second album (Frost, 2019), during the pandemic, I did many commissioned works for big bands and classical ensembles, among others, as well as the debut album of my second band Meow Piglet. I also wanted to give myself more time to work on composing a third album, which would allow me to push my own sound further and discover new textures and production methods.
I love making albums, and I always try to give each one its own spirit. Little Further is made of global uncertainty and a strange collective sense of loneliness. I also explore dramatic apocalyptic issues in the pieces called The Last Ones and Letter. The lyrics on the latter are part of a letter I asked ChatGPT to write through an assignment. Despite all the gloom, in keeping with the title of the album ´Little Further´, I want to trust in a better tomorrow.
You can keep finishing a composition, a production, or an album forever and there are very few songs where I didn’t see room for improvement. You must be able to let go of a song at some point and think that this is my style now. With that in mind, you can also look at the albums as documents of life stages.
Is your music above all “pure” music for you? Or do you have a wider ambition, a desire to make a difference, when creating and performing music?
I’m trying more than before to write music with a strong message and influence. My debut album was a collection of little stories about my personal life, as I was in the middle of many changes. With this third album (and as I get older), I am more aware, and I want to use my music to underline the social problems I see.
Since my quintet’s music is instrumental, naming the songs is important to me. With names I can give the listener a little hint of how I might wish my song to be listened to. When composing larger pieces, I have written a longer description of what the piece is about. In such works, for example, I have paid tribute to the female composers and instrumentalists of the earliest days of jazz, whose work and contributions to jazz music have received little attention. My composition Siimes – Behind the Woods is about an old spruce forest and is linked to the idea of protecting old forests. Of course, in the end it is up to the listener to decide in which world they want to associate the music.
What’s going to happen?
For another year, I can work on my compositions with the grant. This is also why I spend most of the year outside Finland. Next year, I will also spend some time in the United States. I’m dreaming of getting my symphony performed and having two albums ready to be released by the end of next year. I also hope to make music both for small and large ensembles, regardless of genre. I am working hard to one day make a living composing and performing my own music, but hard work also requires the right timing and luck.
Aurora Hentunen Quintet
Friday 1 November 2024 at 21.00, Telakka
