INTRODUCING :Max Savikangas, Composer, Violist

Max Savikangas’s bio (Finland)

Max Savikangas, composer and violist (b. 1969), received M.Mus. from the Sibelius Academy, Finland, in 1998 after completing studies in music theory, composition, viola perfromance and electroacoustic music. For several years now, Max has been working as a free composer, violist and lecturer. He has composed over 75 works of instrumental chamber music, vocal music, electroacoustic music and combinations of these. His largest work so far is a 7-hour electroacoustic sound installation entitled Hammer, Anvil, Stirrup (2005), which was nominated as one of the Finnish Composers' Copyright Society Teosto prise winner candidates in 2005.

Max is the President of the Finnish Viola Society, member of the Society of Finnish Composers and the interdisciplinary artist association MUU. He was appointed as the executive secretary of the International Viola Society Presidency for the three-year term 2008-2010.

In addition to composing and performing on the viola, Max has been involved in multi-disciplinary co-projects, often utilising technology. He is also very interested in developing the viola - Max plays on a viola model which he has been developing with the Finnish luthier Pekka Mikael Laine since 1998, utilising computer spectral analysis and new varnishing techniques.

www.uusinta.com/savikangasE.html
http://www.fimic.fi/
www.saunalahti.fi/pekklai/strings/laine-viola/laine-viola.html


Max Savikangas: Nordic Lights and Shadows for six violas (2008), dur. ca. 6 min.

Nordic Lights and Shadows was comissioned by and is dedicated to Matthijs Bunschoten of VioLabor ensemble, Switzerland. Matthijs found samples of my music online, ordered my cd and some scores and finally asked me to write a piece for six violas, to be performed by VioLabor in the Bratschenturbulenzen concert organised by Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur. Matthijs asked for a “short piece, quiet and very colourfull like your solo-viola pieces, with beautiful modern effects in it and with a nice melancholic taste to it”. Because Matthijs even provided the title of the piece for me it was a true comission indeed! I hope you enjoy the resulting short flash of Nordic images.


Max Savikangas: Kranker Matthäus for flute and viola (2006), dur. ca. 9 min.

J.S. Bach rewrites in his St Matthews Passion a choral by Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612). The choral is sung several times during the passion. I heard the choral first time as a small boy in April 1976 at The Helsinki Cathedral, when popping in with my mother during an evening walk. Mother stayed in the foyer, but I, a curious boy, went in. Just then the choral started, and my body hair reacted to the music. Then, shortly after I got an uncomfortable feeling of somebody staring at me. And yes, there was a tall, dark fellow manicly, furiously staring at me from two meters distance. Soon I had to escape his burning gaze back to the foyer. When I told my mother what had happened, some lady commented from the side: “but didn’t you notice that you had your hat on?”.

Where does the experience of holyness disappear from an nonbeliever like me? I don’t think it disappears anywhere, it’s just transferred from religion into everyday life - into dishwater, as my artist colleque Teemu Mäki puts it.