80th anniversary of the Finnish Composers

Turku Conservatory will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Finnish Composers in 2025 in several ways. The anniversary will include a composition competition and visits by composers to our institution to guide our students in preparing their works for performance. The composers coming to visit us are Aino Tenkanen, Tytti Arola, Robert Ruohola and Lauri Mäntysaari.

To celebrate the centenary year, we will also perform Finnish new art music in our student concerts and in our teachers’ Timantis series. Composer Mikko Heiniö will be the patron of our 80th anniversary celebrations of Finnish composers.

The Turku Conservatory Composition Competition 2025 has three categories. The adult series is open to all composers living in Finland. The youth series for 15-18 year olds and under 15 year olds are restricted to young people from the Southwest Finland region. The adult series aims to provide young musicians with new and inspiring chamber music repertoire with a pedagogical aspect. In the youth series, the subject matter is free.

“The rules of the composition competition are deliberately written to be quite loose and to encourage creativity,” says Marko Autio, Head of Education and composer. “Naturally, we are hoping for a large number of participants in our competition. Fortunately, the Turku Conservatory Support Foundation is helping to organise the competition by donating a total of €4,000 towards the prizes,” Autio continues.

The rules of the Turku Conservatory’s composition competition can be found here.