"If someone stood next to me and heard a flute from afar and I heard nothing, or someone heard the shepherd singing and I heard nothing either, such events brought me close to despair, little was missing and I ended my life myself - only art, it held me back, oh it seemed impossible to me to leave the world until I had produced everything I felt myself capable of," Beethoven wrote in his Heiligenstadt Testament. In view of his illness, Beethoven's work appears to be an incomprehensible "nonetheless". In painting, masters such as Degas and Monet, Manet and Hodler produced significant works despite their physical impairment. Do we also encounter physical suffering in dialogue with their paintings? Did it have a formative effect - on their work?

Vito Žuraj says: "In addition to a massive limitation, a disability can also be the impetus for an artist to find alternative ways of communicating that lead to highly original ideas. It is difficult to say how Ludwig van Beethoven's music would have developed without his hearing problems. Personally, I stuttered a lot in my childhood, I had great difficulty pronouncing hard consonants, and in order to avoid them, I literally reinvented Slovenian grammar." In memory of this time, Vito Žuraj has re-examined his own tonal language for INNEN.

The first joint concert by the Helsinki Chamber Choir and Freiburg's Ensemble Recherche will include the world premiere of INNEN as well as a virtuoso solo work for female voice and instrumental ensemble by Sweden's Malin Bång and works by Lotta Wennäkoski, Perttu Haapanen and Franck Bedrossian.

Before the concert, a panel discussion entitled Unfiltered Creativity will take place in the foyer of the Helsinki Music Centre in collaboration with the Autism Foundation Finland and the Making Space for Artistry project. Visual artists Maarit Hedman and Riina Noro will take part in the discussion, which will be moderated by dancer Maija Karhunen.

The German premiere of the work, which was commissioned by Helsingin Kamarikuoro, Beethoven Jubiläums-Gesellschaft and ACHT BRÜCKEN | Musik für Köln, supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, will take place on 17 May at the Acht Brücken festival in Cologne.

Musica Nova Helsinki