Office of the President of the Republic
Press Release 62/2013
26 November 2013
President of the Republic of Finland Sauli Niinistö and his spouse Jenni Haukio will host the Independence Day concert and reception at Tampere Hall on 6 December 2013.
The Independence Day concert will represent a journey into the Finnish mindscape on the wings of music and literature. The concert will feature Soile Isokoski, Vesa-Matti Loiri, Waltteri Torikka and Maria Ylipää as soloists. Other performers will include a host of actors, who will interpret excerpts from Finnish works written during the era of Finnish independence. These excerpts, chosen in collaboration with the Finnish Literature Society, will represent both poetry and prose. Texts by both contemporary and deceased authors will be read. The story told by the musical pieces and literary extracts will provide a perspective on the Finnish soul – on who we Finns are and how our national identity was built. The orchestra will be the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, with Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducting. The Sympaatti Youth Choir and Pirkanpojat Boys Choir will also perform at the concert.
The concert will begin at the Main Auditorium of Tampere Hall at approximately 7.30pm, after the presidential couple has greeted all of their guests. The greeting will begin at 5:30pm with war veterans, almost one hundred of whom have been invited to the Independence Day reception. Around 1,700 guests, representing various sectors of society from all provinces of Finland, have been invited to the event. With its selection of guests, the presidential couple wants to emphasize the value of all kinds of work performed throughout the country towards the success of independent Finland. The guest list was drawn up in collaboration with various provincial actors.
After the concert, at approximately 8:30 pm the presidential couple will host a sit-down coffee event for war veterans. The other guests will transfer to the Sorsapuisto Hall to attend a reception with a buffet of local delicacies. The ingredients used for the foods will be local and organic produce from small producers in the Pirkanmaa area, with the dishes being prepared by Tampere Hall in cooperation with the Pirkanmaa Chefs’ Association.
Background music during the handshaking ceremony and the coffee event for war veterans at Tampere Hall will be provided by the Guards’ Band under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Elias Seppälä, Chief Conductor of the Finnish Defence Forces and Major Jyrki Koskinen, Head of the Guards’ Band. At the reception in Sorsapuisto Hall, background music will be provided by the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra’s Salon Orchestra.
The reception at Tampere Hall is expected to end by 10:30 pm. The Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) will broadcast the event live on TV 1 from 5:15pm to 9:30pm.