UMO opens the doors of its rehearsal space and lets the audience as close as possible to hear as the final touches are put to the program “Five for Ferlinghetti“.

Note: The open rehearsal starts at 2 pm, not 3 pm as told before! 

Saxophonist Mikko Innanen, UMO’s Young Soloist from 1995, appears at the helm of the orchestra for the first time in fifteen years in the premiere of his five-part composition to American writer Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poems. The oldest part, Jazz & Poultry, was written in 2003, while the four other parts Innanen composed in New York in 2012. The big band versions to be heard in this concert he arranged specifically for UMO. The concert (not the Open Rehearsal) will see Finnish singer Sanni Orasmaa feature as a guest vocalist and Mikko Hassinen on the conductor’s podium.

Mikko Innanen (b. 1978) is a saxophonist, composer and band-leader who has a knack of always being where interesting things are happening in music. In 2017 he took action to raise awareness of the deteriorating condition of the Baltic Sea by playing solo on a raft made of plastic garbage in the Aura River, Turku. Other recent projects include Innanen and co.’s spiralic-global revival of provincial songs (Maakuntalaulu-uudistus), with which they toured around Finland last year. Also last year the saxophonist and his orchestra 10+ joined forces with the 16-piece choir Key Ensemble on Innanen’s 50-minute piece Fryygia.

In addition to leading his own groups Innkvisitio, 10+, PLOP, Delirium and Gourmet, Innanen has made an impressive international career by playing with the likes of Kalle Kalima, Andrew Cyrille, John Tchicai, Han Bennik, Ingrid Jensen and Wadada Leo Smith. Currently, his discography comprises over 50 recordings, and critics have shortlisted the 2008 Yrjö Jazz Prize awardee among the Rising Stars in Downbeat magazine already four times consecutively.