Parallella verkligheter II 19.11.
Betel Church at 7:00 PM

Welcome to enjoy WeW!25

Different Realities

November 18-23, 2025

About the festival theme

We live in a contradictory wave of many simultaneous realities, both socially and globally. Since art is not born, lives, or grows outside of reality, it is inevitable that social changes will also affect artists in a broad sense.

This kind of development has been a growing phenomenon in the 21st century: Art has been used to take a stand on climate change, the coronavirus pandemic, and the war that is constantly gnawing at humanity, which is currently affecting Europeans more than ever since World War II.

In unstable times, it is typical that various conservative trends gain support in both politics and art. The reality is sought to escape into the past, where "everything was better", instead of genuinely trying to build a better future in this moment. Yesterday's solutions are building today, and as we know, history is full of bad examples of human behavior. So is this really the direction we should take as a model for the future?

There have always been various conflicts in the field of music: those who stubbornly adhere to old thinking criticize various new trends, and those who look at things from a new angle may wonder what "sonata" and "symphony" have to do with the music of our time, since they belong to the past. Despite this fact, large concert halls and opera houses build their repertoire with historical repertoire: The past is the dominant soundscape of art music.

Introducing new and experimental repertoire falls on the shoulders of small actors and is also the primary mission of the WeW! Festival. Interdisciplinary and collaboration between different art forms are part of the festival's mission. We want to encourage composers of all kinds to seek new directions and perspectives in their works.

Different realities can very well coexist fruitfully on this small planet of ours, as long as we know how to share this common space with everyone in harmony. Artistic disagreements, on the other hand, are an essential part of the art world, because each creator is right in their own opinion, and no one knows the absolute truth.

Asta Hyvärinen, Chairman of WeW! Association