The Tapiola Sinfonietta’s first concert guides began their work this fall. The core of the concert guides’ work is to assist the audience with any questions they may have, from finding their seats or the coat check to matters related to the concert’s program. The guides are familiar with the day’s concert program and the performers, and you can talk to them about topics such as the concert’s themes and background. In addition, the guides help with the practical arrangements for the concerts in advance to ensure that the audience’s visit to the Espoo Cultural Center is as easy as possible.
Eevi Sallasmaa is one of the Tapiola Sinfonietta’s eight concert guides. Eevi, who also actively plays the trumpet—including with the Tapiola Youth Symphony Orchestra—says that the concert guides are always there for the audience. As a student in the music program at Tapiola High School, the Espoo Cultural Center is already a very familiar environment for Eevi. Working in a familiar setting ensures that assisting the audience goes even more smoothly.
Eevi encourages the audience to approach the guides with any questions they may have, so that attending the concert is as enjoyable and easy as possible for every single visitor.
“Feel free to come talk to us. We’re here for the audience! If we don’t know the answer to a question, we always know who to refer you to.”
In Eevi’s opinion, the best part of being a guide is helping people and making a successful concert experience possible. There have already been many encounters during the fall concerts, and the guides have been approached about all sorts of things. One encounter that particularly stands out for Eevi was with a patron who specifically wanted to hear the guides’ own thoughts on that day’s concert. These interactions are therefore reciprocal, and both the patron and the guide can learn something new from them.
At Tapiola Sinfonietta concerts, there are always 3–4 guides on hand; you may run into some of them right away on the first floor of the cultural center, and others on the upper floors, near the entrances to the Tapiola Hall. You can recognize the concert guides by their bright orange vests. You can also scan the digital program for the concert using the signs they carry.
