Orthodox Kuopio - Choir Concert in Valamo Sat 18.10

Orthodox music in the history of the 250-year-old city of Kuopio

Orthodox Kuopio Choir

Conducted by cantor Sofia Laukkanen

The concert will be hosted

Total duration approx. 45 minutes.

Program 10 €

This year marks 250 years since the founding of the city of Kuopio. The jubilee year has been celebrated with numerous events in the city. Amidst it all, there has also been time to reflect on what Orthodoxy has meant in the history of the celebrating city. By all accounts, its significance has been truly great. The Orthodox Kuopio concert at Valamo Monastery on 18.10 tells this story through music.

The concert will feature a selection of choral works combining Kuopio and Orthodoxy, chosen from the program of the Orthodox Kuopio concerts held in the Kuopio region last winter and spring. The choir includes singers from both the Kuopio Orthodox parish choir and other Kuopio choirs, and it is led by cantor Sofia Laukkanen.

The story of Kuopio Orthodoxy begins in Ladoga Valamo and the St. Petersburg Court Chapel, passing first through the Cossack detachment stationed in the city and the Russian Revolution to Finland's independence and its own autonomous church, then to war, evacuation years, and the settlement of border Karelians, and the reconstruction era, when Kuopio became the center of the Finnish Orthodox Church for decades. Now, in the city's jubilee year 2025, it can be stated that Kuopio has the third-largest Orthodox parish in the country, today Finnish, Savo, Karelian, and international in its appearance.

For the first time, as wide a selection as possible of works by Orthodox liturgical music composers who have influenced Kuopio over the decades, or their arrangements, has been gathered into one concert. The list is impressive. It rightly begins with Archbishop Paavali himself. Many of the composers of these works are still actively working at the pinnacle of Finnish Orthodox church music. The program also includes a few brand-new works, composed to liturgical texts, released in honor of Kuopio's jubilee year.

WELCOME!