I am a musician and journalist currently working as a lecturer in music theory, history and analysis at Uniarts Helsinki Sibelius Academy. I regularly do audience work, perform as a clarinetist in orchestras and chamber groups, and engage with different types of communities both in and outside music.
Music is my greatest love, and I would consider teaching music as a strong calling in my life! My most important starting point is, that music – like all art – is communication. This guides my work as a teacher: a musician needs to have a comprehensive awareness of music to really communicate with each other and their audiences. Also, as a composer and arranger, I always first think of performers, audiences, and the messages, narratives and feelings the music conveys.
What’s Up?
In the Tunne Orkesterisi — Know Your Orchestra series::
New music from me:
More compositions and arrangements
You can find me also here:
More pics:
Short Biography
Ville Komppa works as a lecturer at Uniarts Helsinki Sibelius Academy teaching music theory, analysis and history. His research interests lie both in music theory and pedagogy: first, in different analytical practices of tonal harmony, voice leading, and harmonic structure, and second, on the use of improvisation and ensemble playing in teaching harmony, voice leading and music analysis.
The interaction of music, culture and social life is important to Komppa both in personal and professional life, whether it be in the arts, teaching, audience projects, or questions of equality, wellbeing or sustainability. Komppa composes, arranges, performs as a clarinetist, hosts the Tunne orkesterisi (Know Your Orchestra) lecture series at Helsinki Music Centre, and writes, speaks and broadcasts.
Komppa has written arrangements for some of the foremost Finnish musicians, and his compositions include songs, chamber music, and large scale orchestral works. His latest engagements as a clarinetist have been with the Game Music Collective, Uuden Ajan Ensemble and Kokonainen Festival, and he also acted as the artistic director of Helsinki Symphonic Winds in 2011–2017. Komppa was the co-founder of the Kamarikesä Chamber Summer Festival and Helsinki Winds Festival, and currently he is a board member of MUTES – Society of music theory and solfège pedagogues in Finland.
Ville Komppa has got grants for studying and working from Finnish Cultural Foundation and Pro Musica Foundation.
Longer Biography
Ville Komppa works as a lecturer at Uniarts Helsinki Sibelius Academy teaching music theory, analysis, and history. His research interests lie both in music theory and pedagogy: first, in different analytical practices of tonal harmony, voice leading, and harmonic structure, and second, on the use of improvisation and ensemble playing in teaching harmony, voice leading and music analysis. Also, he has studied the interaction of orchestration and voice-leading structure in the music of the 18th and 19th Centuries.
Komppa completed a master’s degree in music at Sibelius Academy 2008 majoring in music theory. He has also completed studies in orchestration and conducting at Sibelius Academy, and at Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts and Mannes School of Music. He has attended master classes in conducting by e.g. Jorma Panula and Atso Almila.
Alongside working as a teacher, journalist, and further studying and researching, Komppa composes, arranges, performs as a clarinetist, and conducts ensembles. The interaction of music, culture and social life is important to Komppa both in personal and professional life, whether it be in the arts, teaching, audience projects or questions of equality, wellbeing or sustainability.
He has arranged classical works for such Finnish artists as Okko Kamu, Lilli Paasikivi, and Johanna Rusanen. He did a chamber arrangement of the opera Il matrimonio segreto, by Domenico Cimarosa, for the Savonlinna Music Academy’s summer 2011 production at Savonlinna Opera Festival, conducted by Anna-Maria Helsing and Arturo Alvarado. Komppa’s compositions include a set of seven songs, to the texts by the Finnish poet Tommy Tabermann, for soprano Mari Palo, baritone Juha Hostikka, and an ensemble of top young Finnish musicians, that had its premier at Theatre Kapsäkki in Fall 2019.
Ville Komppa was the artistic director of the Helsinki Symphonic Winds in 2011–2017, and he has worked as a conductor in different types of projects, including a theatre production of Igor Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale by Pori Sinfonietta, and concerts by the Ritarikatu Ensemble. His latest engagements as a clarinetist have been with the Game Music Collective, Uuden Ajan Ensemble and Kokonainen Festival.
Among his other activities Komppa hosts the Tunne orkesterisi (Know Your Orchestra) audience series at Helsinki Music Centre, and he has broadcasted classical music at Yleisradio (the Finnish Broadcasting Company) and Radio Helsinki. Komppa writes about music and organises events: his articles have been published at Yle Classical and Amfion online, and at Rondo Classic Magazine; he was the chairman of Sibelius Academy Student Union in 2005; and he co-founded the Kamarikesä Chamber Summer Festival with the violinist Pasi Eerikäinen in 2005, working as the Festival’s executive director in 2005–2007 and 2011, and also co-founded the Helsinki Winds Festival in 2017.
Komppa has promoted sustainability and worked towards environment at, among others, Kohtaaminen Huipulla events at Koli since 2017 and at the Ilmastonpuolustus (Climate Defence) concert series at different locations around North Karelia in Summer 2018.
Ville Komppa has got grants for studying and working from Finnish Cultural Foundation and Pro Musica Foundation.
Ville Olavi Komppa 