Crossing Oceans through Repertoires: Ignacio Cornejo’s Tenso CONNECT Experience

6 January 2025,

Madrid, Spain.

Hello,

My name is Ignacio Cornejo, baritone, and I am one of the members of the Tenso CONNECT 2024/25 programme.

In November I was fortunate to be able to do my internship with Helsinki Kamarikuoro, in

Finland. It was two weeks of very intense work, but I think that before I continue telling you about this wonderful experience, first I have to put it in context.

I am from Chile, in South America, but I have been living in Madrid, Spain, for almost six

years now, and one of the reasons why I decided to move from one continent to another, and cross a whole ocean, was to perfect myself and dedicate myself to baroque music, an ancient repertoire, which is fortunately the repertoire that I sing most often in Spain and in other European countries.

When I was informed that the choir I had to do the internship with was the HKK, I had many emotions, all of them good, but when I saw the repertoire I would have to face, I can't deny that I was a bit scared. It was contemporary repertoire, with a choir that is an expert in this style of music, as confirmed by the Grammy they won in 2023 for best choral performance.

However, it is a completely different repertoire to what I am used to singing, and one in

which I had very little experience. I must confess that I studied a lot before starting the rehearsals, because it was incredibly difficult music, and very fast, and of course, to make everything even more exciting, there were two works that were in Finnish, which for me, as a Spanish speaker, sounded very nice and different to the ear, however it was totally indecipherable hahaha.

All that fear disappeared the day of the first rehearsal and all the rehearsals that followed. I found an incredibly welcoming choir, with a mind-blowingly high musical level, they infected me with that sense of perfectionism, the level of work, of rehearsals, it was so detailed, so specific. For me it was like having two weeks of a masterclass in contemporary music with probably one of the most specialised choirs in Europe in this repertoire.

Thanks to the Tenso CONNECT Project, I was assigned a mentor, who in my case was also my string leader, Jussi Linnanmäki, who was concerned from the very first moment with any of my musical queries, he was kind enough to help me with Finnish phonetics, which was totally unknown to me, he was concerned that my experience with the Helsinki Kamarikuoro would be as fruitful as possible, and that was certainly the case.

I was fortunate that besides Helsinki, I was also able to visit two other cities where we had concerts, Tampere and Kuopio.

This was a trip that enriched me a lot both musically, of course, but also personally. Finland is so different from Spain, and I felt that these contrasts nourished me at every moment. The tranquillity of the cities, the people, the language, the food, the way of life, the weather, which I just had the opportunity that the first week were very sunny days, although very cold, but I could see a city that in the few hours of light, was beautiful, and then the second week, were intense days of lots of snow, totally different from the first week, but as it was something so uncommon for me, it was really nice to see how the snow fell every day.

After the internship, I was invited to participate in the next auditions, and after this wonderful experience, I will not hesitate to apply to be part of this group with such a high level both musically and humanly. It only remains for me to infinitely thank the Tenso CONNECT Project, who organise all this, and give us singers who are in the first years of our professional life the opportunity to live these experiences, and to be able to train, to work with other great singers, with renowned conductors, and to be able to open our possibilities as professional singers, not only in our countries of residence, but also in the rest of Europe.