early August as she was finishing her breakfast at a cafe near her apartment in Manhattan. While she walked back home, and stopped for a moment in a park nearby, we chatted about her six years as a singer, musician, and teacher in New York City. Sanni Orasmaa
Singer, Composer, Teacher Commutes Between NYC and Helsinki
New World Finn caught up with Sanni Orasmaa one Sunday morning in early August as she was finishing her breakfast at a cafe near her apartment in Manhattan. While she walked back home, and stopped for a moment in a park nearby, we chatted about her six years as a singer, musician, and teacher in New York City.
For the past six summers she has been teaching children (between age of 6-12) at a performing arts day camp in the city. Throughout the summer she rehearses them – about 20 at a time – in a special project, and then at the end of the camp they perform it. This year the campers under Sanni’s leadership performed over 15 productions - from a show based on Stevie Wonder music to a jazz show. Sanni says that the work she does with them, even though it is good training in music, is more about “helping them get confidence” in their lives.
Most of Sanni’s time however, has been devoted to her work as a teacher at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, and also her performing and composing career. This summer she mastered a CD of poems by Eino Leino that she has set to music. (At the time of her interview with New World Finn she was actively looking for a label to release the recording.) Accompanying her on the CD - Laulun Lapsi – are Norwegian saxophone player Ole Mathisen and pianist Russ Lossing. is the name of the recording. They worked on the CD for two years and then recorded it in 2006.. Another album featuring Sanni on a few songs has just been released by the popular Finnish group RinneRadio. The group and Sanni are performing numerous dates in the Helsinki area this October (2007).
Orasmaa, a native of Helsinki and a faculty member of the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, is currently commuting between New York City and Helsinki, where she is teaching at the Pop & Jazz Conservatory. Just recently the two schools agreed to exchange information and strategies, as well as personnel. It is “a very interesting opportunity” for her, “and I’m very glad that it has happened” Sanni said. The whole idea for the exchange originated with her. “It is a very natural thing for me to do,” she said, since New York and Helsinki are both very much a part of her now. She is also happy about this project because “it will benefit so many others.” The first project that Sanni was asked to do in her position at the Pop & Jazz Conservatory, was to write a study plan for voice which the conservatory and most of the other similar programs in Finland will follow from now on. "Improvisation and all kinds of communication will be strongly involved in the plan," she said.
Sanni is a singer with a strong Scandinavian influence, as well as a composer and an educator. Over the past six years her unique northern sound could be heard in various downtown clubs and restaurants in New York City at venues such as the Knitting Factory and the Rainbow Room, Sweet Basil, Blue Note and the Cornelia Street Cafe. She has been featured monthly at the Smoke Jazz Club and shares often Monday nights at the Bar Next Door with guitarist Ben Monder. Sanni Orasmaa has worked in independent film, radio and live with various collaborators, including Swiss composer George Gruntz in his jazz opera Magic of a Flute.
Sanni joined her first vocal group at the age of five and started piano lessons at the age of six. Her great uncle who collected and composed traditional Finnish folk music inspired her and gave her material to work with. She began her professional career performing as a soloist of dance bands and choirs, and made her first international solo appearance at the age of seventeen in Lithuania. Sanni attended the Pop/Jazz Conservatory of Helsinki as a voice major and moved to Austria in 1996 to continue her studies in the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz. Her professors there were legendary New York based vocalists Mark Murphy, Jay Clayton and Sheila Jordan (who became her mentor.) Sanni graduated from the Jazz Department with a Master’s Degree in 2000. Already during her studies Sanni Orasmaa was performing in clubs and festivals around the world. She traveled as a soloist as well as with her trio Saaga which performed mostly her original material. While still in Austria, Sanni won the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead, an international competition for young artists who are dual musicians and composers, and was invited to join a workshop and three performances at the Kennedy-Center in Washington, D.C. in April 2000. She was also featured in NPR’s Jazz Set program, then hosted by Branford Marsalis. Sanni is a recipient of the American Scandinavian Society’s Artist Grant 2005 as well as the Arts Council of Finland Artist Grant 2006. She has been profiled by PRI’s Jazz Smithsonian in the documentary series The Jazz Singers, hosted by Al Jarreau.
For more information about Sanni’s career, as well as an opportunity to view QuickTime videos of her in performance, go to her website: www.sanniorasmaa.com.
Information for this article was taken from an interview by Gerry Henkel with Sanni on August 5th, 2007, and from her website.