Ten years of matinees in the museum
Villa Hakasalmi’s matinee concerts began in March 2015. After nearly 350 concerts, the hall still fills up every Sunday.
The hall of Villa Hakasalmi served as a venue for charity concerts back in the days of Aurora Karamzin in the late 19th century. The building has continued to serve as a music venue from time to time even after its transformation into a museum in 1906. For example, in the 1970s, the City Museum held candlelight concerts in the hall. Burning candles is no longer allowed in the museum, but the possibilities of the beautiful hall and its excellent acoustics as a music space have been utilised in full.
In 2015–2017, Villa Hakasalmi held an exhibition entitled Music!, during which the hall was opened for the use of amateur musicians and music lovers in Helsinki. The City Museum provided everyone willing with an opportunity to hold a Sunday matinee in the hall of the villa. The principle was simple from the start: no lease, no reward. The public was given free entry to the matinees and the entire museum alike.
The matinees, which started off as a trial, quickly became a success, and Hakasalmi’s calendar was soon bursting with concerts. In addition to amateurs, first-class professionals would sign up in droves to hold matinees, and the concert series became high-quality and musically diverse. The public also discovered the Museum’s matinees, and the upstairs of the villa was sometimes chock-full of listeners. Some would attend concerts almost every week.
Towards the end of the Music! exhibition, both musicians and listeners were asking whether the matinees would continue, and the Museum decided to continue this established tradition. Ever since then, the villa has been filled with the sound of music every Sunday at 14.00 when the museum has been open. The popularity of the matinees has remained stable despite the reinstatement of entrance fees in 2018 and the long shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now – after nearly 350 matinees – the hall is filled almost every Sunday, the concert calendar is fully booked until the end of the summer and artists looking to perform are queuing for the winter season.
The Kassandrakuoro choir led by Veera Voima performed in Villa Hakasalmi in 2016. Photo: Helsinki City Museum.
An intimate and atmospheric concert hall
Folk singer Veera Voima and her choir have performed in Villa Hakasalmi several times since 2016. Voima appreciates the acoustics of the hall, which are opportune for singers; spacious yet not too reverberant. She is also impressed with the strong atmosphere of the villa. “It’s great to get to sing in such an atmosphere right in the centre of Helsinki, in the middle of otherwise very monumental buildings.”
Villa Hakasalmi is easy to access for audiences, and the small hall makes for an intimate concert experience. “The audience is almost sitting in your lap, and since there’s no platform, you can’t be too stiff as a performer. We’ve usually had a nice amount of complete strangers to the choir members show up, which is rare for us! The listeners have appeared to be interested and approachable.”
Guitarists Janne Malinen and Eetu Yrjänä performed in a matinee at Villa Hakasalmi as a duo for the first time in early March 2025. “The milieu and pleasant acoustics of the hall were more than suitable for our guitar music from the Classical and Romantic periods. The historical villa complemented our performance!”
The audience is very close and at the same height as the performer, making it easy for the performer to observe the listeners’ reactions and, thus, make the performance more interactive. Malinen and Yrjänä are also pleased by the fact that taking part in the popular and well-communicated matinee series is a way for musicians to easily reach a new audience. “Having the museum hall for concert use is a fun concept and nice opportunity for musicians.”
Synnöve From often comes to listen to the matinees of Villa Hakasalmi. Photo: Henri Tuomi / Helsinki City Museum.
Listener with a diverse taste
The matinees of Villa Hakasalmi draw plenty of faithful listeners who come to enjoy varying concerts on a regular basis. The Museum Card makes it convenient and affordable, lowering the threshold for people to come to hear new kinds of music, for example, and perhaps find new favourites.
For years, Töölö resident Synnöve From and her friends have sat in their regular places in the front row almost every Sunday. “The matinees of Villa Hakasalmi are pleasant Sunday afternoon events, and I have enjoyed them a great deal. The hall is usually full of listeners.”
From enjoys a wide variety of music styles, but of recent matinees, Helsinki Klezmer Kapelye’s fun concert and the performance by Estonian blues guitarist Andres Roots have left a particular impression on her. She has also been very delighted by the performances given by the skilled young pianists of music schools.
However, not everything that From has heard in the hall has been a pleasure. “The small hall is not an acoustically ideal venue for large choirs or other large ensembles. Too much volume in the hall hurts the ears.” Synnöve From promises to come back next Sunday to enjoy music in the hall of Villa Hakasalmi and invites new listeners to follow suit!
See the matinee programme for the spring season