Mänttä Music Festival

The 23rd Mänttä Music Festival, a piano music festival that will run from 2 to 6 August 2022, will present even more internationally successful musicians than in previous years.

A large number of significant first performances of piano music have been heard in Mänttä. These works present a wide range of musical styles from Kalevi Aho’s 2nd Piano Concerto, Organ Symphony and 2nd Piano Sonata to piano works from composers such as Jean Sibelius, Erkki Melartin, Eero Hämeenniemi, Matthew Whittall, Tonu Korvits and Osmo-Tapio Räihälä. During the years, the Mänttä Music Festival has featured a great number of international pianists of the highest rank, such as Sergei Babayan, Jeremy Denk, Richard Goode, Marc-André Hamelin, Angela Hewitt, Cyprien Katsaris, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Paul Lewis and Olli Mustonen.

This year is no exception. Among other piano virtuosos, these two young stars will perform. Yulianna Avdeeva and Seong-Jin Cho are previous winners of the Warsaw Chopin Competition, Avdeeva in 2010 and Cho in 2015. Since the competition, both have joined the international elite of young pianists and are some of the most sought-after performers of their generation. Other internationally renowned performers at the festival are Angela Hewitt and Olli Mustonen, both of whom return to Mänttä after a break of a few years.

As artistic director, pianist Niklas Pokki states: “Our festival does not compete on size but on quality—we are proud to organize an event whose musical quality and ambience is equal to that of the most prestigious piano events across the world.”

The Mänttä Music Festival’s main concert venue is the Kivijärvi Hall in the Serlachius Museum Gösta. Some concerts will take place in the Mänttä Club and in the Mänttä and Vilppula churches.