“I would probably never have achieved all this professionally without a summer job in Finland back in the 1970s,” says French American Kevin Kleinmann, who has enjoyed a triumphant career in the classical music industry and arts management.

It all started with the Helsinki Festival in 1975. A summer job there gave Kleinmann exceptionally valuable work experience in PR and media relations, as well as introducing him to the classical music business. It also turned into a seven-year stay in Helsinki.

Those years offered a cornucopia of connections to top artists, both Finnish and foreign, and led him into the recording business and the creation of a totally new label, Finlandia Records. This, in turn, opened the gates to the international music industry.

Since leaving Helsinki, Kleinmann has held senior positions at CBS Records (Sony Classics), Philips Classics, PolyGram Classique France and PolyGram/Universal Music International. He now works as adviser to the classical board of Universal Music International and as professor of arts management and cultural policy at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Young American in Finland

Young Kevin Kleinmann first travelled to Helsinki in 1975 from Germany on the MS Finlandia, and later created Finlandia Records. Photo courtesy of K. Kleinmann

As a young American music student, Kleinmann arrived in Hamburg, Germany to study violin and musicology. He rented a tiny room in the house of the great German pianist Christoph Eschenbach. Kleinmann was enlisted to collect the mail and take phone messages for Eschenbach.

“Legendary director and founder of the Helsinki Festival Seppo Nummi often had reason to contact my landlord, so we chatted on the phone,” says Kleinmann. “I found him a very fascinating person and told him of my interest in working at a music festival to learn the business. His immediate answer was, “You should come and work in Helsinki as an office assistant. ”

“I took the next ship to Helsinki. I initially planned to stay for only three months, but that adventure ended up being extended by seven years.”

“In those amazing years, the 1970s, I found Finland truly exotic,” Kleinmann recalls. “It was fresh and unspoiled, with an original spirit. As a foreigner I was treated like an exotic bird and I loved that!”

“I was determined to learn Finnish, and took courses at Helsinki University. I became a translator for the Helsinki Festival and many others. I was struck by the creative energy that you could sense everywhere back then.”

Creating a record label

“Finland was a nation boiling over with creative individuals, still forging its national identity. So many great composers actively working and appreciated by the Finnish general public; excellent young aspiring architects; glass-art designers like Timo Sarpeneva, Oiva Toikka and Kaj Franck; textile artists like Armi Ratia, Maija Isola and Markku Piri; and writers like Arto Paasilinna.”

Finnophile: Kleinmann’s Paris flat is full of Finnish design items, including Iittala glassware, Artek’s Alvar Aalto furniture and more. Photo: Didier Delmas

“I quickly realised that I liked it in Finland,” says Kleinmann. “All the possibilities I was given to do and create, at my age, would have been impossible anywhere else at that time. For me it was an El Dorado, with treasures that hadn’t yet been exhausted and a rich culture that was still unknown to so many outside of its borders.”

“That’s where my idea came from to create a new record label devoted principally to Finnish music. I presented my idea to the Finnlevy label’s managing director, John Eric Westö, and chairman, Roger Lindberg, powerful music figures of the time. I started to develop an export network for Finlandia Records throughout the world.”

A French American who lived in Finland promoting its music made foreign audiences curious. The international press wrote stories about the foreign champion of Finnish classical music who had created a record label at the tender age of 22.

Music powerhouse

Kleinmann believes that Finland is, without a doubt, a music powerhouse. “Finland has more world-class musicians and composers per capita than any other country in the world. That is not only my opinion, but is something that is acknowledged and respected throughout the entire music world. We call it ‘the Finnish music miracle.’

“Many people have asked me to explain this. I always answer that creativity of all kinds can only come from an environment that combines education in the necessary skills with a creative force that is encouraged and nurtured by the society. Finland made the wise decision, more than half a century ago, to make music education a priority and the world can now see and hear the marvelous results.”

By Vesa Kytöoja, March 2013

For more than a century, Finns have been creating their own idiosyncratic tango music. The supergroup Tango-orkesteri Unto serves up a fluid blend of classic and contemporary, folksy and intellectual.

Finland’s first tango was performed on February 7, 1913 at the Apollo Theatre on Helsinki’s Esplanade, in a building that now houses the Ministry of Justice. The tango has since become an integral Finnish institution.

A century-or-so later, that tradition is most elegantly personified by Tango-orkesteri Unto. The ensemble is composed of six seasoned professionals from different fields of music, each with a list of credits as long as the Esplanade.

Romantic range of expression

Vocalist Pirjo Aittomäki (left), pianist and arranger Timo Alakotila and four other musicians help make Tango-orkesteri Unto one of the most versatile tango groups around. Photo: Sinimaaria Kangas

“I remember our first concert, at Expo ’98 in Lisbon,” says vivacious vocalist Pirjo Aittomäki over coffee at the Helsinki Music Centre café. “Afterwards a Portuguese guy came up to me and said that this was the most romantic music he’d ever heard.”

Since then, the band has wowed audiences all over Europe. The British label ARC Music has released three albums by the group. Now Unto has new territory in its sights: making a name for themselves in America.

The New World is familiar to the ensemble’s soft-spoken pianist and arranger, Timo Alakotila, a teacher at the Sibelius Academy. He has toured the US with folk bands JPP and Troka, which also included Unto’s violinist Mauno Järvelä and accordionist Johanna Juhola respectively. Just a couple of weeks before Unto’s debut, a nervous Troka appeared on Garrison Keillor’s legendary Minnesota-based radio show A Prairie Home Companion.

Aittomäki, meanwhile, has toured the world with British choral-pop band Adiemus and starred in musicals such as Les Misérables. With this background, she knows how to belt a song out of the ballpark when needed – or how to turn it into an intimate, suspended moment.

That range of expression plays an essential role in the breadth of material Unto tackles, including classics from the golden age of Finnish tango and originals that bring that tradition firmly into the 21st century.

Timeless tunes

Tango-orkesteri Unto takes its name from Unto Mononen, a composer active during the golden age of Finnish tango in the mid-1900s. Photo: Lehtikuva

The golden age of Finnish tango in the 1940s to ’60s was dominated by composers Toivo Kärki and Unto Mononen, who lent the band its name.

“Since the beginning, we’ve done traditional tangos but made them sound modern,” says Alakotila. “A great song can stand up to being interpreted in different styles and generations. Mononen and Kärki both wrote timeless melodies that are at the level of the classic Argentinean tangos – at least! You can really hear the passion and the melancholy.”

The way they play this music is elegant, mature and acoustic – far from the slick commercial style popular at the Seinäjoki Tango Festival and on Baltic cruise ships.

The band’s songs are also more literary, often featuring Finnish modernist poems as lyrics.

“I don’t consider it as being arty, though,” says Aittomäki, “because these poems are very down-to-earth. But they’re something more. I don’t want to say deeper, but poetry uses different words than standard pop lyrics.”

Dancing allowed

At a Tango-orkesteri Unto concert, you may find yourself swaying, tapping your toes or even dancing. Photo: Riku Isohella/Lehtikuva

Unto offers the sound of six virtuoso musicians at the top of their game, among the cream of Finland’s musicians from many genres.

What makes them swing then? A secret ingredient? It may have more to do with the absence of something: drums.

“That makes us very flexible with the rhythm,” says Aittomäki. “It’s more passionate than the traditional Finnish way of playing tango, which is very straight, a bit more stiff.”

Rather than drums, Unto relies on syncopated rhythms set by bassist Hannu Rantanen (of world-music band Värttinä) and guitarist and mandolinist Petri Hakala, veteran of countless groups drawing on Finnish, Irish and American folk.

“People rarely dance at our concerts, although of course it’s not forbidden!” says Alakotila. “It’s more concert material.”

Still, while this music makes you think and dream, you may well also find yourself swaying and tapping your toes.

By Wif Stenger, February 2013, updated July 2013 and and August 2015