Helsinki, Finland - Helsinki’s summer event season will be kicked off by the second Helsinki Week from 4 to 16 June. One of the highlights of the week-long events will be the presentation of the Finnish prov-ince of Satakunta in Senate Square, offering visitors a chance to taste regional foods and ad-mire local handicrafts from this part of Finland. In addition, regional music, dance and theatre will be performed on stages in Senate Square and Esplanade Park. Two concerts will be held at Helsinki Cathedral, a hymn concert performed by Jukka Perkko and a performance of “Deus Protector Noster” by Pori Sinfonietta. The highlight of Helsinki Week, of course, is Helsinki Day on 12 June when the city celebrates its birthday. The internationally renowned Finnish contem-porary folk music bands Duo Kuunkuiskaajat, Polka Chicks and JPP will perform at the festival tent in Kaisaniemi Park, where the popular samba carnivals will also begin. A wide range of events will be organised for visitors of all ages at the Espa Stage, Töölö Market and Kontula. On the same weekend the Les Lumières cultural festival of the Enlightenment offers music and po-etry in the spirit of the late 18th century under the theme ”Revolutionary Ideas”. The traditional picnic concert will be held on Saturday 13 June at Kustaanmiekka at Suomenlinna.



Top names at the Helsinki Festival

The Helsinki Festival from 13 to 30 August once again offers a wide range of events at the end of the summer. Among the highlights this year is a performance by the renowned Philharmonia Orchestra from London conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen at Finlandia Hall on 21 and 22 Au-gust. The festival’s legendary Huvila venue will treats audiences to a stellar line up of world mu-sic’s leading stars, top Finnish performers, and the first appearance by the top American alter-native rock band Wilco in Finland. The sixth Flow Festival will be held at the historic Suvilahti power plant from 14 to 16 August, offering a wide range of international and Finnish urban rhythm music. The Helsinki Festival culminates with the popular Night of the Arts on 21 August.

Summer music programme offers rare delights

The highlight of this summer rock concerts in Helsinki will no doubt be the appearance by Madonna. Her “Sticky & Sweet” tour will attract 80,000 fans to Jätkäsaari on 6 August. Another major event will be the comeback tour of Faith No More after 11 years of silence. The band will perform in Kaisaniemi Park on 24 June. Kaisaniemi Park will also be the venue for the Tuska Festival on 26 to 28 June. Fans of heavy metal will be treated to concerts by two international super-bands. Metallica will perform at Hartwall Arena on 14 and 15 June, while AC/DC arrive two days later on 17 June to perform at the Olympic Stadium.

Rare Picasso exhibition at Ateneum at the end of summer

The Kalevala exhibition celebrating the 160th anniversary of the publication of the Finnish na-tional epic continues until 9 August at the Ateneum Art Museum. The exhibition presents inter-pretations of the Kalevala by leading Finnish artists from the 1850s to the present day, including paintings, sculptures, prints and photography. The Kalevala exhibition will be followed by a unique exhibition of the works of Pablo Picasso beginning on 18 September. Helsinki is the only Scandinavian city that will host this major Pi-casso exhibition. The exhibition is part of the arts year 2009 programme of Helsinki and the met-ropolitan region. The theme year encompasses the exhibition projects of seven major art muse-ums that have been compiled by the HelsinkiArt.fi network.

Sporting highlights this summer

The biggest sporting event in Helsinki this summer will be the UEFA Women’s Euro 2009 foot-ball championships from 23 August to 10 September. The championships will include 12 na-tional teams for the first time ever, and the matches will be held in Helsinki, as well as in Lahti, Tampere and Turku. Finland has competed once before in the European Championships in 2005, when it tied for third place. This year Finland did not have to qualify as the host nation. The annual Kaleva Games will be held this year in neighbouring Espoo at the Leppävaara Sta-dium, where up to 8000 spectators can enjoy the Finnish championships in athletics. This is a major event at which Finland’s top track and field stars all aim to post their best results of the season.

For more information about these and many more events, see the appendix “Events in Helsinki Region in summer 2009” and use this link to visit Helsinki’s official tourism website . . . .