Vuolteenaho, Sanna

Sanna Vuolteenaho is an improvising singer, teacher, and vocal facilitator. She graduated from the Sibelius Academy as both a music teacher and a singer, and has actively performed early music for over thirty years. Since 2010, she has worked as a lecturer in music education at Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. To deepen her passion for improvisation, she pursued additional studies in the “Contemporary Improvisation” master’s program at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. Most recently, her path has led her to artistic doctoral studies at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. In her doctoral research, Vuolteenaho examines the relationship between the audience and performers, and how the traditional audience–performer setup in concerts can be dismantled, for example through shared improvisation. Her approach is to experiment with and develop, across three concert entities, different participatory methods through which the audience can, if they wish, take part in a guided way. The concerts are based wholly or partly on improvised music, which in art music has not yet established a position alongside composed music. The aim of the research is to create participatory and inclusive practices that invite creative engagement within the (classical music) concert context, and to give a voice to listeners who may, until now, have unintentionally remained “just” listeners. Sanna describes herself as an active seeker of new things, a bit whimsical, a lifelong learner, and someone who trusts in the goodness of life. Her motto is: “Permission to play.”