Turku Music Festival presents Yona and Saimaa’s new Ukraine project

Turku Music Festival brings to Turku a unique concert of Ukrainian musical heritage – Yona, Saimaa and Vantaa Orchestra on stage at Samppalinna Summer Theatre on 29 August 2025.

On Thursday 29 August 2025, the Turku Music Festival will organise a concert at the Samppalinna Summer Theatre, featuring a large-scale musical ensemble on the cultural heritage of Ukraine. The performers will include artist Yona, the Saimaa ensemble and the Vantaa Orchestra. The concert is part of a wider project to translate, arrange and perform Ukrainian songs in Finnish. The Turku Music Festival is the first event where this project will be presented to the public in concert form.

Eveliina Salminen, Sales and Marketing Manager of the Turku Music Festival, is delighted to be involved in such a culturally and artistically exceptional project:

“We are immensely proud and grateful that Turku Music Festival is the premiere venue for this significant work. The collaboration between Yona, Saimaa and the Vantaa Orchestra brings a rare combination of sensitivity, power and topicality to the stage. It is great to be able to offer audiences an experience that both touches and carries a wider cultural message – through music.”

The concert will feature a selection of songs from the forthcoming album, chosen in collaboration with Ukrainian cultural institutions. The songs aim to reflect Ukrainian cultural identity and the experience of war, loss and hope. The songs have been translated by Yona and arranged by Saimaa under the leading of Matti Mikkola, and the Vantaa Orchestra.

The project’s first single Laula mulle laulu will be released on 9.5.2025. The song is a Finnish version of the popular Ukrainian band Okean Elzy‘s song Obijmy. Originally released in 2013, the song has taken on a new meaning since the Russian invasion and has become a symbolic song performed at demonstrations and anti-war events. Yona’s interpretation in Finnish deals with both the struggle for love and the aftermath of war in the individual experience:

“Even though the war is over, the struggle continues / Even though there is peace, I cannot have peace”, Yona sings.

The album is produced by Solovey Productions, led by Mikko-Pekka Hanski, whose aim is to strengthen cultural ties between Ukraine and Finland and to promote Ukrainian music in Finland. The recording sessions started in Los Angeles in December 2023, and the project will continue in close cooperation with Ukrainian artists and experts, with an emphasis on authenticity and cultural relevance in the song selection.

In addition to the album material, the concert will also feature other Yona and Saimaa productions, arranged for a large orchestral ensemble. The event is part of the Turku Music Festival’s 2025 programme and is based on the idea of art as a means of increasing understanding, empathy and cultural dialogue.

Eveliina Salminen, Head of Sales and Marketing, Turku Music Festival
eveliina.salminen@tmj.fi / +358 40 5245531