Ulla Suokko Combines Music, Stories,
and Poems In Her Performances

When Ulla Suokko, Finlandia Foundation performer of the year, left Finland and came to America in 1992 to continue her studies of classical flute playing, her goal was to complete a doctorate in music and then become a professional flutist. She has achieved those goals, and has also discovered her work as a musical healer.
After leaving the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, she first attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester where she enrolled in the doctoral program. While there, Ulla not only pursued her playing and academic work, but she also began her practice of musical work in hospices.
It wasn't long before Ulla realized that the Eastman School was not satisfying her needs as a performer. She moved to New York City where she finished her doctoral program at Juilliard School, and where she continued to bring music programs to hospitals and hospices, and nursing homes through Juilliard's community outreach programs. "Juilliard has been my gateway to the professional world of music all over the planet," she says. "If you do something well in NYC it will always lead to something else."
Yet it did not lead immediately to the work that she wanted to do. In a recent conversation Ulla admitted that "about 5-6 years ago I had a moment when nothing seemed to work. I was sending tapes, knocking on doors. I felt like I was hitting my head against the wall. I felt I really had something to give to the world. But I couldn't find a venue for it so I sat down and asked for help."
Ulla says that she announced to the powers that be that "If I'm not meant to be a musician let me do something else now." She said somewhat shyly, "I would be willing to continue this if it was clear that it was my path. I felt that I couldn't figure this out for myself so I asked for a sign. I left it at that. I went for a walk."
It was a summer Sunday in NYC when she made that prayer for help. She was walking out on Broadway and there was no one else in sight. As she was crossing the street she saw one book upside down in the middle of the street. There was nobody around.
"I thought to myself," Ulla relates, "well I can at least look. I picked it up and turned it over. The title of a book was the 'The Singing Flute'! My hair stood up and I looked up. When I slowly opened the book, it was a story of a little Finnish girl. I got the message! So here I am."

Since then she has been slowly getting the work that she needs. She now enjoys a versatile career sharing not only the magic of music, but also of poetry and stories.
"I share with audiences my favorite poetry. Poetry flows from the music, and makes a bridge to chatting with the audience. One poet I recite is award winning Juhani Koskinen who is in his late 20's from northern Finland. He writes in the Finnish dialect from Lapland. His first collection of poems has the feeling of Finnish silence, and life in the middle of nature, communing with nature. He is dealing deeply with life. There is space for your own thoughts and also a great sense of humor."
Another poet that she enjoys sharing with her audiences is Eino Leino. "I just love Eino Leino," Ulla says, "he would be one of the greatest poets of the world if he wrote in some other language. In addition to the profound understanding of humanity, his genius is in the music of the language."
Ulla also uses stories in her performances. "Stories - I love stories, with stories you can make a point - somehow all of the sudden you can understand something about being a human being in this world. They bring me to the next place. Whenever I hear something that touches me, I remember it."

Ulla has combined her musical work with a system and technique that she has learned called Reiki. "Reiki is beautiful and powerful and gentle - it's universal life energy in all things. It clears your energy system so you don't have blocks. It helps one to become a clear instrument. Reiki is a beautiful sister to music. It helps one to heal one's own life. It helps one get rid of all kinds of unnecessary stuff. It has helped me find who I am and to go where I want to go. It was immediately very familiar to me - so similar to being a musician.
"As an artist I feel I'm at a point of transition. I love performing in whatever capacity, and I've been asked to lead workshops for both musicians and non-musicians - little workshops on stress release, relaxation techniques, listening, communicating and exploring sounds and silence through improvisation using music.
"I'm also exploring the traditions of bards and shamans, and others. Trying to see how my work follows in those traditions. My mission is much the same as theirs - healer and entertainer. Magical musical journies."
Ulla's experience as a musician and story teller and Reiki practioner, have led her to also give workshops in which she combines all of these dimensions. When she talks about this part of her professional work, she uses terms like "magic" and "energy" and the "healing power of music".
"I'm learning more and more about dropping into this energy of magic." she says. "I'm learning to be centered and clear, having my own power, being real in front of people. I want to share these tools with people in workshops, to help them find a way to be truly where they need to be at any moment."

Ulla has performed to audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. She has been active both as a soloist and chamber musician, and has been featured in some of New York City's most prestigious concert halls and in many other venerated concert venues throughout the East Coast and Europe. Her performances are heard regularly throughout the New York Metropolitan area. New York City's classical radio station WNYC has often broadcast her recordings and live performances. She has been a featured artist at many summer festivals in her native Finland, including the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival and Uusikaupunki Crusell Festival.
Her training as a flutist was classical, but she ventures into other areas of musical interest as well. In the summer of 2000, she performed at the Embassy of Finland in a concert called "A Musical Journey to the Soul of Finnishness". Soon after that concert, she was in New York, as the flutist in a performance piece titled "To The Dogs" by Mihoko Suzuki, based upon a 125 minute recording of dog sounds at C.A.C.C. (NYC Animal Control System). It is a "visual-auditory ritual, contemplating poetry of sound, movement and imagery through a spiritual quest towards the 33 abandoned dogs, whose haunting voices silently conjure the complex and contradictory relationship between humans and nonhuman animals," according to a description of the concert.
Ulla performs regularly with the group Continuum which is known for its unorthodox repertory and its tours to unusual places. The group performed in the Republic of Mongolia, where they were among 35 musicians in the second "Roaring Hooves" festival of contemporary music. The Continuum performers were Martha Elliott, soprano; Ulla Suokko, flute; David Gresham, clarinet; Tom Chiu, violin; Alberto Parrini, cello; Cheryl Seltzer, pianist, and Joel Sachs, pianist and conductor.
In telling about this unusual desert concert experience, Ulla speaks softly in short phrases, yet with enthusiasm.
"It was the Gobi desert. We lived in nomadic tents on the desert. The audience rode in on horses. There was a shaman's sacred ritual by the fire. Musicians from NY and Europe. All the westerners played contemporary music. After the shaman's ritual I found myself in the shaman's tent, with the festival director, a German, Bernhard Wulff. We had to sit in certain way in the 'gur' traditional tent. A handful of people were there, mostly Mongolians. The shaman had huge energy, incredibly penetrating but twinkling eyes, a great sense of humor in a man. He did some rituals, offered fermented mare's milk. I hadn't had any alcohol for a while because of my healing work, I felt I didn't want to mess with it. There was the shaman offering vodka and fermented mare's milk. I looked into the shaman's twinkling eyes, and I thought how many times do you drink with a shaman in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia??!! I took the shaman's gift."
She gave a gift back to the shaman and his people by singing Finnish folk songs by herself.
"The Germans did some yodeling," she said, "but they cheated, they did it together."

Her visit and performance in the Gobi Desert was not the only music she played while in Central Asia. She also was in Tashkent with the director and composer Dimitri Yanov-Yanovsky. Just as she had unusual experiences in the desert in Mongolia, she also had exotic but meaningful experiences in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
"That trip was really important to me for some weird reason. Something made me feel like I belonged there. The director of Continuum, Joel Sachs, had 'made a mistake' and forgotten to order my airline ticket in time. He said I had to stay four days longer in Tashkent. Little did I know those four days would be so incredible. I got to know some local artists, and I taught master classes to the young conservatory students who played with such passion. They played with their hearts. They're living in material poverty, but such they have such richness of heart. In NY it is 'how much does it pay, how much does it cost'. There was an instrument shop in Samarkand in the city where I found a bamboo flute, in the traditional scale of Uzbekistan. I bought the flute and went to a mosque for Mohammed's cousin. It is a very sacred place for Muslims. We went to the mausoleum about closing time. It is a beautiful place, evening light filtering in from openings in the walls. I asked our guide if I could play my new Usbekistani flute. He asked to pray first, he chanted a prayer from the Koran.
Ulla says that when he finished, she then let the flute follow the chant and to show her how to play. "I didn't even know the scale. I just started feeling the flute, allowed my breath to give it life. I felt all the spirits present from the ancient past, from the present and the future. There was me, a woman from Finland, unveiled, playing a local flute, a boy from Samarkand, chanting a prayer. I thought that this is a seed for world peace. My song came to an end, the world embraced us with a ringing silence. This flute I love. Maybe I can bring this peace forward, even just to one person at a time. However much peace we can bring, we are changing the world. This is how we gather and spread magic, by touching each other's lives."

On September 11th, 2001 - that fateful day - Ulla and Gulnara Mashourova, a harpist, were scheduled to play in the Juilliard Artists In Concert series near Wall Street. The music was to include pieces by Fauré, Ravel, Debussy, Bartók, Piazzolla, Sibelius, and Ibert. Ulla was at home getting ready for the performance when she got an email from a friend of hers in Finland - a friend who knew she didn't watch tv. The message said, "don't go downtown, just turn on the tv and watch the news". She immediately called Juilliard and told them what was happening, but Ulla says the person from Juilliard on the other end of the line didn't understand. "If you don't show up, you don't get paid," she said.
Two months later in November, Ulla was one of the performers in "A Musical Offering" in memory of September 11 at Saint Peter's Church. Ulla was one of six musicians performing a composition by Timo-Juhani Kyllönen called Desolazione Opus 16.
"After Sept. 11th we were a group of professional musicians asking what we can do," she said. "We decided to use music to help heal hearts. I have played at Ground Zero in St. Paul's Chapel since October. I play still two or three times a week for the workers - firefighters, all the incredible people. We have also played for funerals and memorial services for the victims. I lost a lot of work because of Sept 11. So my bills have been a little late. By playing in St. Paul's I know what it means to be prosperous. That is exactly where I want to be - it is not a question of money."
She played for the hospital staff at St. Vincents one week later, even played in the emergency room. She was told, "It is amazing what you do, you did big time emergency crisis-counseling with your flute."
"I just went home and I opened myself and asked to be led. All the little things led to another. I felt guided to all these things. I feel blessed to do this work and this is where my stories come from."

Ulla collaborates with composers, inspiring new works for her instrument. She has premiered scores of works, including several dedicated to her. Usbekistani composer Dimitri Yanov-Yanovsky just finished a piece for her. "His music has moved me like nothing else has for a long time," she said. An American composer, polyartist Francis Schwartz, has written the powerful theatrical solo piece exclusively for her, called Mad Lady MacBeth. "Francis is a wonderful creative mind and a great friend, I am honored to have a piece by him." An Argentinian composer, Marcelo Toledo has composed a piece for her that is very "physical" and full of energy. "I am happy to lend myself as an instrument and voice for the composers of our time. It keeps me on the edge and brings fresh energy to all the music that I perform."

An avid advocate of the healing power of music, she brings concerts and healing energy to hospitals, nursing homes and into the homes of hospice care patients.
" This is why I am a musician in this world. To really allow music to be a tool of healing. Healing doesn't necessarily mean curing. Just something that makes you a little bit more whole.
"When I play a piece of music by a composer, I channel - meaning I get my ego out of the way - I allow myself to be of service. My mission as an artist - as a human being - is to bring harmony, peace, love, and light into the world. By expanding my means, I can do it more, in more ways, that is my focus."
In addition to solo and chamber music performances in the traditional concert hall, she often brings music into more intimate settings, creating special tailor-made programs for a variety of audiences. Always searching for new ways of communicating and reaching for the hearts of people, she enjoys exploring and expanding the possibilities of expression.
"I enjoy custom-designing programs. Performing is a two way street, I'm doing it with the audience. I couldn't do it alone," she says. "The beauty is in the people."

Ulla Suokko holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School, a Master of Music degree from Sibelius Academy, and a Performer's Certificate from Eastman School of Music. While still living in Finland, she was flutist in the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and spent many summers studying and performing in Italy. For all inquires about Ulla Suokko's performances, upcoming CD and booking her, contact her directly at 212-928-3974 or http://www.amassentertainment.com/us/?nav=1. Her website is www.ullasuokko.com.

(Photos: 1. In March, 2002 in Paris for a concert. Photo by Pekka Virolainen. 2. Ulla autographs a concert program for a young aspiring flutist after a concert at the New York Mills, Minnesota, Cultural Center. 3. Ulla tours world wide throughout the year. She recently performed a series of concerts in northern Minnesota, USA. Here she is shown playing a simple willow whistle while standing on a cliff high above Lake Superior. 4. Another photo from Palisade Head cliff, northern Minnesota.)