Awake Percussion
was founded in Helsinki in 2016. The group’s aim is first and foremost to give audiences the opportunity to hear the most fascinating music of our times, performed with the utmost conviction. Commissioning new music and working in close collaboration with composers is a central part of the ensemble’s artistic vision. Awake Percussion’s unique and artistically coherent concert programmes are all constructed around new works commissioned by the group and Finnish premieres of other works. The quartet of players comprises the four board members of the Percussion Chamber-Music Society, an organisation whose aims include furthering audiences’ awareness of percussion music and providing percussion teaching right across Finland.

The ensemble’s name, Awake Percussion, is a nod to its direct ancestor, the Breath Ensemble which operated under the auspices of the Percussion Chamber-Music Society. The choice of the word ‘awake’ is important as it refers, on the one hand, to the very literal awakening of the Chamber-Music Society’s activities, which had dwindled in recent years. More than that, the word reminds us of where it all began and says something of the group’s mission to remain constantly ‘awake’ in the ever changing and developing worlds of music and art.