Helsinki Day: The Great Urban Poetry Night
Urban poetry meets the city’s soundscape on the evening of Helsinki’s 475th anniversary. The Great Urban Poetry Night’s headliner is the legendary Tuomari Nurmio. Free entry!
On Helsinki Day, the City Museum offers poetry on stage and unique music. The Great Urban Poetry Night, now to be held for the fifth time, opens with a multidisciplinary Sound Landscapes performance, where jouhikko player Mikko H. Haapoja’s melodies, played with the traditional bowed lyre, and Helsinki-themed soundscapes are combined with the urban poetry of illmari and Kasper Salonen. Artist Elina Aho-Brennan will create large performative paintings at the same time, inspired by the impulses of the performance. Next, the audience will get to enjoy fresh urban poetry in English by Vishnu Vardhan.
The Great Urban Poetry Night is part of the sound art project The Routes of Helsinki. In connection to the event, Haapoja will release the 15-year collection album of his project, Helsinki Soundtrack, which contains sounds from our capital city from 2010 to 2025.
Open mic session
The audience of Helsinki Day will also have the chance to perform their own poetry or songs when the host of the evening, Kasper Salonen, opens the stage for a multilingual Helsinki Open Mic event at the end of the night.
The open mic event requires prior registration. The ten performance spots will be filled in the order of registrations by email. Registration is also possible during the evening if all spots have not been reserved when the event starts.
Would you like to join us in creating the Great Urban Poetry Night? Do you happen to have a 2–5-minute performance related to Helsinki in your back pocket? Register your performance with Kasper Salonen by email at the address kasper@kaspersalonen.com.
Programme:
18.00 Sound Landscapes (Haapoja/illmari/Salonen)
18.45 Vishnu Vardhani
19.15 Tuomari Nurmio
19.50 Helsinki Open Mic
The event is open to all and free of charge. We hope to see you there!
Photo: Tuomari Nurmio
