Motström Quartet
Harri Sjöström – soprano saxophone
Libero Mureddu – piano
Jukka Kääriäinen – guitar
Teemu Mustonen – drums
Motström’s concert will offer fierce and fragile sounds along with close-knit dialogue between experienced improvisationists. Harri Sjöstrom represents the absolute elite of European improvised music, and playing alongside him are Libero Mureddu, Teemu Mustonen and Jukka Kääriäinen, each well-known both in Finland and abroad.
Harri Sjöström (1952-) is a renowned improvisational musician. He has worked primarily in Europe and is a founding member of groups such as Move- quintet, ECIO, Quintet Moderne. He has worked with a great number of musicians such as Yoko Arai, Kalle Kalima, Heikki Nikula, Evan Parker, Philipp Wachsmann. From 1990 to 2016 Sjöström worked closely with Cecil Taylor.
Libero Mureddu is a pianist, composer and music technologist, born in 1975 in Milan and living in Helsinki since 2003. Presently he is working on his doctorate at the Sibelius Academy and has previously studied at the “G.Verdi” conservatory in Milan as well as the music technology program at the Sibelius Academy. In his art Mureddu combines improvisation, composition, algorithms and artificial intelligence, together these create innovative, unexpected and challenging meetings.
Teemu Mustonen is an improvisational percussionist and music educator, he has studied at the Malmö Academy of Music jazz-program and at the Sibelius Academy jazz-department. He explores the possibilities of the drumset and its preparation within the context of free improvisation. Teemu has performed and recorded with the foremost names in Finnish jazz and improvisational music, his latest collaboration is a recording with Raoul Björkenheim, Mikko Innanen and Juhani Aaltonen released in the fall of 2021.
Jukka Kääriäinen is a musician with a focus on experimental music. He switches between prepared acoustic guitar and electric guitar combined with a bag full of effects as the occasion demands. Kääriäinen has performed in many European countries and at international festivals in Great Britain, Spain and France. In addition to his solo concerts he regularly performs with a variety of bands and has worked with musicians such as Teppo Hauta-Aho, Kalle Kalima, Harri Sjöström, Emilio Gordoa, Elena Kakaliagou, Rieko Okuda, Antti Virtaranta, Anil Eraslan, Mikko Innanen and Paul Pignon among others. He has also premiered works by composers such as Sebastian Hilli, Sami Klemola, Clara de Asis and Leo Dupleix.