Playing in Perfect Harmony: Duo Euphonic Blend on Music, Marriage, and Winning the Diamond Prize
- WOMCO
- 21 hours ago
- 5 min read
Duo Euphonic Blend from Finland, consisting of euphonium player Aksel Salmioranta and tuba player Nuppu Salmioranta, was awarded the Diamond Prize in the Duo Music category for their performance of Miniature Rhapsody in the Style of Shostakovich at the Berlioz International Music Competition, 2025 Season 3 (June 10 – September 10), with results announced in October 2025.
Following this remarkable achievement, we had the pleasure of speaking with Duo Euphonic Blend to learn more about their musical journey, their approach to performing as a duo, and the story behind their award-winning piece. In this exclusive interview, Aksel and Nuppu share insights into their collaboration, preparation, and what makes performing together so special for them.
When and why did you form your duo, and does playing music together hold a special meaning for you?
Duo Euphonic Blend:
"We formed our Duo in 2021 when we were asked to play in our relative’s Wedding. After that we started to think that we could actually make this more professional ensemble, and here we are. Playing and making music together has an extremely special meaning to us. It is a privilege for us as a married couple to also be able to work together. We know each other completely and therefore also playing together is very easy. It is cool to notice during the rehearsals how we can almost predict what the other person is doing – the music making with all the dynamic changes, tempo changes and atmospheres comes naturally. Playing together is for us a chance to combine our beloved profession with spending time together."
Could you share the background of your award-winning performance of Miniature Rhapsody in the Style of Shostakovich? When and where did you record it, and what led you to choose this piece for your performance?
Duo Euphonic Blend:
"The piece Miniture Rhapsody in the Style of Shostakovich has an intresting background. Our euphonium player Aksel Salmioranta was thinking a topic for his new composition. He wanted to compose a piece that is technically demanding, exciting for the listener and neither too short, nor too long. At the same time our tuba player, Nuppu Salmioranta made a request if Aksel could sometimes compose something in a style of Shostakovich, since Nuppu is a huge Shostakovich fan. That was the missing piece from the inspiration for the new composition – combining technical difficulty, excitement and convenient lenght Aksel ended up composing this Miniature Rhapsody with Shostakovich its inspiration.
We recorded the piece during the summer in the university, where we were studying then. (Aksel graduated in the August, but Nuppu is still continuing her Masterstudies). In our university there was a great hall with nice acoustics, and therefore we choose it as a place for recording. The piece was chosen for the competition because of its technical difficulty, interesting melodies, unusual way of writing for tuba & euphonium duo and because we ourselves liked it very much. We believe that the listener can also hear it from the video, that we really enjoy playing the piece and making music together."
Could you walk us through your approach as a duo in preparing and interpreting your award-winning video performance for the online music competition? How did you collaborate and coordinate as a team, and what artistic or technical considerations shaped the final result? Are there any tips you would offer for submitting a successful ensemble performance video?
Duo Euphonic Blend:
"Our preparations for the competition were long and well planned. We had had the opportunity to get lessons during our exchange year in our university from Aksel’s inspiring teacher. Even though we didn’t know yet last autumn, when we started our erasmus year, that we would end up applying to the competition, we got a huge amount of inspiration and ideas from him. That motivation pushed us to work even harder for our duo, especially our musicality. Later, when we got the idea of applying to the competition and had decided also the piece for it, we took a couple of intensive rehearsal days with this piece. After first individually learning our parts (especially the ending needed quite bit of metronome work and many slow repetitions) we started to focus on the phrasing and music making in a very, very detailed way. Closer to the recording date we did also runthroughs to see how it goes.
One thing what we think is important when one tries to do good videos, is that one records videos already during the preparation process. It’s important to get used to the camera and to the fact that it is recording. Another important thing is, that one tries to make the recording situation so much like a concert as possible. At least for us it was more efficient that way. If the atmosphere is too ”chill” during recording it is harder to gain the focus. One easily thinks that this can be taken again, whereas in the concert there is only one chance.
Other important things we would advice future contestants is to focus on the music making and the coherence of the performance. Music is always the most important thing that we as artists are doing and that should be our top priority."
Would you like to share your experience participating in our competition and anyone you'd like to thank?
Duo Euphonic Blend:
"We would like to thank all our teachers that have guided us through our ensemble years so far, their help and advices have been irreplaceable and they are a huge inspiration."
Biography
Duo Euphonic Blend is a low brass duo from Tampere, Finland. Most of the time they play music for tuba and euphonium, but since both of the members can play all the low brass instruments, the duo can also mix it up in many ways with tenor or bass trombone, 2 euphoniums, 2 tubas and all the mixtures between.
Grounded after a desire to do an extraordinary low-brass music together, duo Euphonic Blend has been playing in various events from a small family gatherings to a big company events. One of the special sides of the duo is that they also compose and arrange pieces for themselves. The goal of the duo is to spread the joy of music everywhere and for everyone – and at the same time raise the awareness of low brass music in general. They want to do their own bit of showing to the world, that low brass music can be interesting, beautiful, fun and awakening experience. And that low brass music can be a very convenient music choice for all kinds of events.
After a very colorful Erasmus exchange year in Austria, duo Euphonic Blend is now planning eagerly their next season. While Aksel is working in Finland as a low brass teacher and next year also as a trombonist in the Guards Band of Finland, Nuppu is doing her Master studies at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, Austria. Therefore the upcoming projects require even more detailed planning and rehearsals. However, the duo is very excited about the Christmas concerts that are taking place in Finland in December. After that they focus on the Spring season. For the next summer the duo has gotten an amazing opportunity to do meaningful work for many weeks, since they got a grant from Jenny and Antti Wihuri foundation for a concert tour in the retirement homes / elderly care homes in Finland. Alongside these two projects and other smaller concerts, duo Euphonic Blend continues their musical journey with optimism and love for music.
