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.

On 6 August, the final day of the festival, 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. Tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Saskia Giorgini will perform Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, the song cycle that made Ian Bostridge world-famous. Giorgini will also play a composition she recorded in 2021, Franz Liszt’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. Her album has won several awards and was one of the most celebrated releases in 2021. In addition, two winners of Finland’s most prominent national piano competition, the Tampere Piano Competition, will perform at the festival: David Munk-Nielsen (the 2021 winner) and Ossi Tanner (the 2017 winner).

– A solo recital can be the most demanding form of musical performance for an artiste but is perhaps the most rewarding for the audience. It can evoke an abundance of emotions as well as an intimate non-verbal connection between the performer and public. Although piano recitals are unfortunately becoming increasingly rare, in Mänttä we fight for the piano recital culture. As our 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.

Ticket sales for the Mänttä Music Festival 2022 open on 1 March at 4 PM (UTC+2). Festival tickets are now sold exclusively in the Serlachius Museum online shop.