History

Before the chamber choir, our university has had choir activities within the Student Union. According to Professor Eero Castrén, the choir, founded in 1977, was active until the 1978 doctoral promotion. After that, the choir’s activities were very irregular.

In the autumn of 1989, Juhani Kärkä and Anitta Etula negotiated with Jorma Hannikainen to establish an official choir. In fact, Jorma promised to be the choir’s first conducter. The first audition for the current choir took place on 12 September 1989. The choir first performed at the Anniversary Celebration of the University of Kuopio on 23 March 1990 and the first concert was held on 8 May 1990.

Jorma Hannikainen conducted the choir for the first three years. For the next academic year (from autumn -92 to spring -93) the choir was conducted by Mari Kukkonen, with Jorma focusing on further studies. Jorma returned as choir conductor for the academic year 93-94.

In the autumn of 1994, Kirsi Mäki took over the choir. Kirsi graduated from the Sibelius Academy with a Master of Music degree from the programme in church music in 1997. At the turn of the millennium, the choir gradually became female-oriented, and it was decided to become a female-only choir altogether.

Sanna Ketola, a student of music, was the choir leader during the 2001-2002 term. After graduating as a cantor from Sibelius Academy, he left to work in Helsinki. From autumn 2002 to spring 2004, the choir was conducted by Hanna Salminen, a student of music. After graduating from Sibelius Academy, he moved to Tampere. From autumn 2004 to spring 2009, the choir was conducted by Master of Music Anne-Christine Tinkala. Between 2009 and 2012 the choir conductor was Anna Kosola and in 2012-2014 Anni Pesälä. After Anni, Taru Parviainen was the choir conductor for a year and Anni continued with us in the spring of 2015. After that, our choir conductor was Eveliina Modinos, who studied at the Sibelius Academy. Since the fall of 2019, the choir has been conducted by Richard Nicholls, a Londoner working as a cantor in Kuopio.

Honorary Members

Kalevi Pyörälä was invited to be an honorary member of the choir in connection with the five-year anniversary concert on 9 May 1995. Miia-Maarit Saarelainen was named an honorary member of the choir on 28 March 2007. As an active member, Miia-Maarit did a lot of work to organize the choir activities into an association form, and she served as the chairperson of the choir board until 2005.