The Society of Finnish Composers is an organisation of experts

The Society of Finnish Composers is celebrating its 60th anniversary in a country that has fulfilled many of its hopes. But there is still work to be done to ensure that Finnish music continues to flourish.
Mikko Heiniö

Imagine what great services we could do each other if we would begin to protect our interests jointly and in mutual understanding, the composer Leevi Madetoja wrote in 1914.

The Finnish Society of Musicians (Suomen Säveltaiteilijain Liitto) was founded in 1917 mainly by composers, and its activities were also mostly led by composers until they founded their own association. In 1928, art music composers together with their publishers founded the Finnish Composers Copyright Society Teosto, which in many ways later became a focus of activities of the composers association too.

The idea of a separate association for composers arose already in 1938, but its realisation was postponed due to the war. The Society of Finnish Composers (SFC) was founded on October 10, 1945, at the instigation of Erik Bergman and Kalervo Tuukkanen. It was felt that its main purpose is to ensure the economic security of composers, for which the Finnish Composers Sibelius Fund was established with donated funds. At about the age of 80, Jean Sibelius permitted the fund to use his name, and he was made the first honorary member of SFC.

The Sibelius Fund supports commissions of new works

The Sibelius Fund awards grants to composers, and it has also financially supported commissions of new works since 1991. The fund is independent, but its board of trustees is chosen by SFC. The Madetoja Foundation, which SFC established in 1973, is similarly governed. This foundations financial resources are based on Leevi Madetojas copyright, which was transferred to SFC in 1973. The funds are used to promote, in addition to Madetojas works, other Finnish music, especially commissions of new works. And since 1988, SFC has nine times awarded its Madetoja Prie to distinguished performers of new Finnish music.

Toivo Saarenpää, Kalervo Tuukkanen, and Väinö Raitio also bequeathed their copyright to SFC in 1958, 1984, and 1993 respectively (a Raitio fund had already been created in 1957 with donations) for the purpose of publishing the respective composers works. Saarenpääs testament included the Reinikkala manor in Kangasniemi, where composers could spend the summer. The dilapidated manor was sold in 1982, and SFC instead acquired a guest apartment for composers in Helsinki.

Becoming established

SFC was founded by 28 composers, and Selim Palmgren was elected the first president. The number of members had grown to 50 by 1970 and to 140 by 2005. In the early days, all the members met as often as once a month. Before long, meetings were convened less often, but not until 1980 was the current practice established with the annual meeting in February or March and meetings in April or May and in September or October.

In collaboration with the Association of Finnish Symphony Orchestras, SFC organised five seminars from 1983 to 1987 in which composers presented their works to orchestra members. During the 1990s, SFC seminars became mainly discussion forums, to which outside experts were also invited. During the following decade, SFC strove to present a seminar in connection with all member meetings in the spring and autumn, often in collaboration with some other organisation, depending on the theme. For example, on the teaching of composition together with the Sibelius Academy, on pedagogic contemporary music with the Association of Finnish Music Schools, on orchestra repertoire with the Association of Finnish Symphony Orchestras, etc.

Among the special achievements of SFCs first secretary, Kalervo Tuukkanen, is the 1953 launch of the noteworthy Fennica record series with 36 LPs. Many of the associations secretaries after Tuukkanen were also composers and also only briefly in office. Office work did not become more professional until 1983, when Maarit Anderzén was appointed as a full-time secretary/treasurer. Her successor, Annu Mikkonen, began in 1996, and the job was changed into that of executive director. A job with this name but fewer responsibilities had previously been taken care of part time by Jarmo Sermilä; and Tapio Tuomela. The member newsletter Kompos(i)ti(o) (Compos(i)t(ion)) first appeared in 1987, and SFC got its own Web pages in 1997. Since 1974, the association has published an annual list of works composed by its members during the previous year (Sävellysvuosi).

Influential composers

SFC was originally connected to other Finnish music organisations through many of its members in a way that shows the complex careers of many composers. Until the 1970s, all the rectors of the Sibelius Academy were composers. While president of SFC, Palmgren was chosen to be the Sibelius Academys first professor of composition and Teostos chairman. Joonas Kokkonen also later held both of these positions.

While president of SFC, Usko Meriläinen founded the Tampere Biennale, which focuses on contemporary Finnish music and is financially and morally supported by SFC. Other contemporary music festivals supported by SFC are Time of Music in Viitasaari, founded by the composer Jukka Tiensuu in 1981 and later directed by the active SFC members Jarmo Sermilä and Tapio Tuomela, and Musica nova (founded as the Helsinki Biennale in 1981), directed by the composer Kimmo Hakola.

All Teosto chairpersons and even its first two executive directors were members of SFC. Together with the Finnish Music Publishers Association and the Finnish Composers and Lyric Writers Association ELVIS, SFC is one of Teostos behind-the-scenes actors and member organisations, from whose leaders the members of Teostos board of directors and committees are chosen in practice, even if not as a rule. In addition to administering the copyright of composers and collecting royalties for the public use of music, Teosto also promotes Finnish music by, for example, providing essential financial support to SFC and the Sibelius Fund.

The Finnish Music Information Centre FIMIC is especially important for SFC. It is today subordinate to Teosto but was established in 1963 under the Finnish Music Council. This in turn was already founded in 1953 and at the instigation of SFC. The Foundation for the Promotion of Finnish Music LUSES was established in 1970, and its ability to promote Finnish music recording and publishing activities increased decisively when a 1984 law enabled the collection of a duty on blank cassettes. Since 2000, LUSESs commission committee has also become important for composers by financially supporting commissions with the help of Teosto.

Of the numerous other organisations in which SFC representatives have participated, the most important is Kopiosto, which collects royalties for photocopying. Next to Teosto, it provides SFCs most important financial support.

The most typical positions to which SFC has been asked to name representatives as experts have been juries at composition competitions. After 1948, SFC did not organise competitions of its own until 1997, when the first Uussävel composition competition was held. In this, the jury only chooses the finalists, and which prizes these win are decided by the listeners in the audience and on the radio. The Uussoitto competition is for performing artists and was first held in 1996; the competitors must perform both Finnish and foreign contemporary music.

Scandinavian collaboration

The most established and longest international contacts of SFC as well as of Teosto are with organisations in other Scandinavian countries. The Nordic Music Days were organised for the first time in 1888 in Copenhagen, but they were only held eight times during the first 50 years. Composers from Finland first participated in 1919 and from Iceland in 1938. The Nordic Composers Council was founded in 1946 as a Scandinavian cooperation and discussion forum. It has dealt with cultural policy and copyright issues and administered the Nordic Music Days, even though each country has taken turns in managing the festivals practical arrangements. SFC organised the event in the years 1950, 1956, 1964, 1970 (when regular rotation was successfully implemented), 1980, 1990, and 2000. The chairman of the Nordic Music Days is now John Frandsen from Denmark and the general secretary is Katrine Ganer Skaug from Norway

With the exception of the old Fennica record series and a record package published and a concert week organised on the occasion of SFCs 50th anniversary in 1995, the association has hardly ever published music or organised performances. SFC has preferred to achieve these goals through collaboration, by providing financial support and expertise to other organisations. The decisions on the music of which composers is to be presented have also been delegated to outside of the board of directors. In the 1950s, the board of directors still chose the Finnish works for the Nordic Music Days; later, this was done by an independent jury, which was usually still followed by a Scandinavian chief jury. Five to ten Finnish works have been performed at each of the biennial festivals.

Pluralism and foreign policy

SFC has made a point of representing all Finnish composers of art music, independent of their stylistic choices. In the early years of SFC, not everybody was confident that the association would have enough understanding for avant-garde music too, and therefore the Contemporary Music Society was founded in 1949. This competed with SFC and was chosen as the national representative in the International Society for Contemporary Music ISCM. Since 1967, except for a few small interruptions, the responsibility for the ISCMs Finnish section has again been with the SFC. One to three Finnish works have been annually heard at ISCM World Music Days except ten works in 1978, but that event took place in Stockholm and Helsinki.

SFCs good relations with its neighbouring countries are evident in its choice of honorary members: Hilding Rosenberg from Sweden, Knudåge Riisager from Denmark, Harald Sæverud from Norway, and Dmitry Shostakovich from the Soviet Union. While visiting Finland in 1958, Shostakovich suggested regular exchange visits between composers in Finland and the Soviet Union. Due to, on the one hand, Finlands special foreign policy situation during the Cold War and, on the other, the high degree of organisation of composers in unions in Eastern Europe, the other exchange visits were also with Eastern bloc countries. After the radical political changes in 1992, the exchange visits with Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia have continued.

The first 50 years of SFCs history have been described in detail in the following work: Erkki Salmenhaara, Säveltäjänä Suomessa. Suomen Säveltäjät 50 vuotta. Otava 1995. See also FMQ 3/1995.

The composer Mikko Heiniö is a professor of musicology at the University of Turku and the president of SFC.

Translation: Ekhart Georgi