Toimii

Toimii (Finnish "It works") is an ensemble for new music founded in the spring of 1980 by Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg with several other young composers and instrumentalists connected with the Sibelius Academy. Along with the new-music appreciation group "Korvat auki", it did much to bring new music to listeners in Finland in the 1980s.

Toimii came into being when Magnus Lindberg, Otto Romanowski, and Esa-Pekka Salonen were preparing a concert performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Plus-Minus". It was formed to be a laboratory where composers, instrumentalists and other artists could work on new ways of creating music and improvising. Apart from from performing existing pieces and writing collective pieces Toimii encouraged poets, painters, dramaturgists and actors to write pieces for its concerts. Vinko Globokar had a significant influence on the burgeoning ensemble after Lindberg began studies with him in Paris in the autumn 1981, and it was at the Jyväskylä Summer Festival in 1982 where a Lindberg piece and a Globokar work were paired that the ensemble first appeared under the name Toimii.

Toimii has performed widely in Europe and in the US. While its members entered upon their own busy careers, they met once or twice each year during the 1980s for a week or so of intensive work. The ensemble continues to occasionally reunites for performances, as in 2003 for a performance of Lindberg's "Kraft".

Members

*Lassi Erkkilä, percussion
*Kari Karikku, clarinet
*Anssi Karttunen, cello
*Juhani Liimatainen, sound engineer
*Magnus Lindberg, piano
*Riku Niemi, percussion (joined 1989)
*Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor

Works Written for Toimii

*Magnus Lindberg: "Action-Situation-Signification" for bass clarinet (doubling double bass clarinet), piano, percussion, cello, and live electronics (1982)
*Pentti Saaritsa: "Ascensus"
*Magnus Lindberg: "Kraft" (1985)
*Juhana Blomstedt: "Speleologia"
*Esa-Pekka Salonen: "Nur-text"
*Magnus Lindberg: "Kiri" for clarinet, cello, percussion, and electronics (1993)
*Riku Niemi: "Magnus meets Monk"
*Magnus Lindberg: "Decorrente"