Kaaås Trio - Chamber Music By Harri Wessman (CD)

Release Date: 11/18/22

Proudly anachronistic romanticism of Harri Wessman for a piano trio

The KAAÅS Trio was founded in 2011 by three Finnish musicians full of initiative. Annemarie Åström is well versed in Nordic music for the violin, an active events organiser and Artistic Director of the Wegelius Chamber Strings. The cellist, Ulla Lampela, is a member of the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra and has produced hospital concerts in Helsinki for patients suffering from eating disorders, for psychiatric wards and for palliative care centres. Tiina Karakorpi, the pianist, has reaped major success in competitions and performed at prestigious concert venues around Europe. She is a constant advocate of equality in musical life, has recorded works by forgotten female composers and edited publications of their music. Hanna Pakkala (b. 1985), a guest on this record, has in recent years recorded a wealth of chamber and orchestral music. She is solo violist in the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, a freelance chamber musician playing both a modern and a Baroque viola, and teaches the viola and chamber music at the Sibelius Academy and the Centria University of Applied Sciences in the OCO's home town, Kokkola.

The Trio has been thinking of recording the complete chamber works with piano by Harri Wessman ever since it was founded. The name of the Trio derives from its members' surnames, in Finnish it reads as 'Chaos'.

Harri Wessman (b. 1949) studied composition under Joonas Kokkonen and was also greatly influenced by the lessons in jazz harmony given at the Sibelius Academy by Eero Koivistoinen. The emphasis in his output is on orchestral and choral works, instrumental concertinos and chamber music. He has also written a large volume of music for teaching purposes. He has taught composition and music theory at the Sibelius Academy and elsewhere and has been an active music reporter and critic.