Toimii
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Toimii (Finnish "It works") is an ensemble for new music founded in the spring of 1980 by Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg with several other young composers and instrumentalists connected with the Sibelius Academy. Along with the new-music appreciation group Korvat auki (Finnish "Ears open"), it did much to bring new music to listeners in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s.
Toimii came into being when Magnus Lindberg, Otto Romanowski, and Esa-Pekka Salonen were preparing a concert performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Plus-Minus. It was formed to be a laboratory where composers, instrumentalists and other artists could work on new ways of creating music and improvising. Apart from performing existing pieces and writing collective pieces Toimii encouraged poets, painters, dramaturgists and actors to write pieces for its concerts. Vinko Globokar had a significant influence on the burgeoning ensemble after Lindberg began studies with him in Paris in the autumn 1981, and it was at the Jyväskylä Summer Festival in 1982 where a Lindberg piece and a Globokar work were paired that the ensemble first appeared under the name Toimii.
Toimii has performed widely in Europe and in the US. While its members entered upon their own busy careers, they met once or twice each year during the 1980s and 1990s for a period of intensive work. The last performances of the ensemble to date were in December 2001 at the Related Rocks Festival in London and in 2003 in Helsinki where they also made their second recording of Lindberg's Kraft.
Members
- Lassi Erkkilä, percussion
- Kari Kriikku, clarinet
- Anssi Karttunen, cello
- Timo Korhonen, guitar (joined 1989)
- Juhani Liimatainen, sound engineer
- Magnus Lindberg, piano
- Riku Niemi, percussion (joined 1989)
- Otto Romanowski, electronics
- Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor
Works Written for Toimii
- Juhana Blomstedt: Speleologia
- Lindberg: Decorrente
- Lindberg: Action-Situation-Signification for bass clarinet (doubling double bass clarinet), piano, percussion, cello, and live electronics (1982)
- Lindberg: Kiri for clarinet, guitar, cello, percussion, and electronics (1993)
- Lindberg: Kraft (1985)
- Niemi: Magnus meets Monk
- Pentti Saaritsa: Ascensus
- Salonen: Floof (1982)
- Salonen: Nur-text
- Toimii-ensemble: Related Stones - A Rock Opera
