The Musical Society of Turku

The Musical Society of Turku (Turun Soitannollinen Seura) was established January 24th, 1790, the 44th birthday of the King of Sweden, Gustav III. The city already had a nascent orchestral scene at the time; aside from Academy of Turku’s Academic Orchestra there were also the concerts organized by the Aurora Society (Aurora-seura), active between 1770 and 1779. The concert of August 19^th, 1773, organized by the society, was the first public orchestral concert to take place in Finland.

The Musical Society's activities were suspended several times over the course of the 19^th century due to events like the Finnish War of 1808 between Sweden and Russia, as well as the great fire of Turku of 1827. Though since 1868, the society has remained active near continuously to this day. The Society’s orchestra was disbanded a few years before the founding of the city’s own orchestra in 1927. However, since about a third of the musicians in the newly established orchestra were former members of the Society’s orchestra, the new orchestra could be seen as the successor of the Society’s old orchestral tradition, keeping it alive to this very day. The city orchestra also kept alive the Society’s tradition in the form of its repertoire, for the city purchased their generous collection of sheet music – excluding the oldest of the repertoire which eventually found its way to the archives of the Sibelius Museum.

The Society has remained active to this day in other musical ventures, establishing both Turku Music Festival and the music festival Ruisrock, starting a cello competition taking place every four years in Turku, as well as organizing concert and opera trips for its members. It is Finland’s oldest extant association. The Society celebrates its anniversary on January 24^th – the day the Society was founded – often accompanied by a performance by the Society’s own amateur orchestra.