My grandfather could have sung to me: he was initially from Karelia, an area famous for its songs and music. Those songs could have been sung in Toki Pona, although that language was created in 2001 when my grandfather was already dead, but it might have happened. 

What DID happen is that I wrote those potential songs into a song cycle for Vokalprojekt 31 and Ere Lievonen playing the Fokker organ. Maybe my talented grandfather sang in 31 equal temperament tuning, where an octave is divided into 31 equal steps instead of 12, which is usual. I call this cycle “Songs my grandfather could have sung to me, ” nice tunes you can almost hum.

Before that composition was even ready, I started to remember things about it. I composed those memories (of the future) into another piece called “Memories of the songs my grandfather could have sung to me.” The pieces are played using an enharmonic organ (17 steps per octave, but not equal ones), and the instrumentalist also gets to speak the text, at least what I could remember.

The image is edited by myself and it is based on the painting “An Old Man Reading” by Hendrick Bloemaert.

The Finnish Cultural Foundation and the University of Arts, Helsinki, DocMus, financially support the project.

PREMIERE

“Memories of the songs my grandfather could have sung to me” will be premiered at the conference “Enharmonic Controllers and Interfaces for Keyboard Instruments” at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz 6-8 December 2024.

“Songs my grandfather could have sung to me” will be premiered in Amsterdam in 2025.