Bilepassio

Bilepassio – Praise of Friday is the world's first bilepassio: a roughly 70-minute work in which the passion — one of Western music's great forms — meets the Finnish Friday evening. The passion is at its core a drama of suffering: a large-scale form in which soloists, choir, and orchestra narrate a protagonist's ordeal, death, and redemption. In Bilepassio, the protagonist Markku, 42, does not suffer on Golgotha but after work: he opens a long drink, calls his friends over, and the passion form begins to tell this very familiar story with the same gravity and dignity it has always brought to the deepest needs of human life.
The artistic tension of the work arises from the collision of form and content: when a sacred large-scale form is applied with full seriousness to an everyday subject, something both funny and genuinely moving emerges. The music weaves together Baroque counterpoint, jazz harmonies, and minimalist structures. No compromises are made — only the highest quality makes the concept work.

Bilepassio premieres on 28 August 2026 at Kallion kirkko in Helsinki, in co-production with Helsingin oopperakesä. The work is composed and conceived by composer-double bassist Tarmo Anttila, with libretto by Antti J. Saari.