Upcoming events
Vappu-Valborg Lunch
May 1, 2025
Vappu-Valborg Lunch on Thursday, 1 May 2025 at The Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn, 8 South Square, London, WC1R 5ET
We will have lunch in the Hall of Gray’s Inn after welcome drinks at the Bridge Bar. We can accommodate up to 25 attendees. The lunch will take place from 1 p.m. to 2.30 p.m. (last entry at 2 p.m.). The welcome drinks will be from 12.00 midday.
Gray’s Inn has been home to lawyers since before 1388 AD and is today one of the four Inns of Court responsible for the education and training of barristers before and after their Call to the Bar. The sixteenth century was known as the “Golden Age” of the Inn, when Queen Elizabeth I herself was the Inn’s Patron. In this period the Inn was renowned for its “Shows” and there can be little doubt that William Shakespeare played in Gray’s Inn Hall, where his patron, Lord Southampton was also a member. Tradition claims that the Great Screen was built from the timbers of the Nuestra Senora del Rosario, the flagship of the Andalucian Squadron of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Some of the exquisite stained-glass windows in the Hall date back to 1462. Master of the Bench of Gray’s Inn, Sir Winston Churchill and Mr Franklin Roosevelt (then Minister of Munitions and Assistant Secretary of the United States Navy, respectively) first met in 1918 at the high table within Gray’s Inn Hall.
We are grateful to John Boyd, KC, a Bencher of Gray’s Inn and a Member of the Anglo-Finnish Society, for facilitating this venue.
The cost is £40 per person. This includes lunch, a three-course plated service, welcome drinks and wine with the meal or non-alcoholic alternatives. Menu choices are available from the Hon. Secretary and have been circulated to those attending.
To book by 22 April 2025, please email the Hon. Secretary on secretary@anglofinnishsociety.
Those of us with white Finnish student caps (ylioppilaslakki or
studentmössa) may wish to wear them, possibly even in the Hall and certainly for a group photograph before or after.
Summer Concert at Burgh House, Hampstead – An afternoon of delightful Sibelius melodies
Jun 8, 2025
The United Kingdom Sibelius Society (‘UKSS’) is holding a concert at Burgh House, Hampstead, London at 2 p.m. on Sunday, 8 June 2025.
Jenny Stern, piano, and Emmanuel Bach, violin, will perform a wide selection of Sibelius’s music for piano and for violin and piano.
Here is the full music programme:
Sonatine for Violin and Piano, Op.80
Works for piano:
Impromptu, Op.97 No.5
Impromptu, Op.5 No.6
Rondoletto, Op.40 No.7
Valse, Op.24 No.5
Romance, Op.24 No.9
Lied, Op.97 No.2
Violin and piano:
Menuetto Op.81 No.5
Interval
Danses Champêtres, Op.106
1. Largamente assai
2. Alla polacca
3. Tempo moderato
4. Tempo di Menuetto
5. Moderato
Six Humoresques for Violin and Piano
I. Commodo, Op.87 No.1
II. Allegro assai, Op.87 No.2
III. Alla gavotta, Op.89 No.1
IV. Andantino, Op.89 No.2
V. Commodo, Op.89 No.3
VI. Allegro, Op.89 No.4
Tickets: We have arranged an allocation of 20 tickets at an early purchase price for A-FS members and the members of the other Anglo-Nordic Societies of £12 each provided you register and pay by 17 April. To book please email the Hon. Secretary at secretary@anglofinnishsociety.org.uk giving the name of the event, your name (and the names of any other members and guests (max. one per member) you wish to register) and make payment by bank transfer to The Anglo- Finnish Society account at Barclays (details of which are available from the Hon. Secretary by email). When paying, please give your surname followed by 0806 as the payment reference. After 17 April, you can obtain tickets directly from the UKSS at the full price of £15. Please note that bookings cannot be accepted without your payment.
Midsummer Lunch
Jun 24, 2025
24th June 2025 (11:45 – 14:30)
Lincoln’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn Fields WC2A 3TL
All four Nordic Societies in England – the Anglo-Danish Society, the Anglo-Finnish Society, the Anglo-Norse Society and the Anglo-Swedish Society – are renewing last year’s successful Nordic Midsummer lunch and invite you to Lincoln’s Inn on Tuesday, 24 June 2025 at 11.45 for 12.30.
The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn is the oldest of the four Inns of Court dating back to 1422. The Great Hall was opened by Queen Victoria in 1845. It is complete with Minstrels’ Gallery, striking fresco and a ceiling of beautifully worked oak. It is described as one of the most impressive surviving buildings of its kind in London.
A 3-course lunch with welcome drinks reception is offered at £45.00 per person. The welcome drinks will be at the Members Common Room.
The dress code for lunch in the Great Hall is business or lounge suits, court dress or smart casual dress.
Places were allocated this time by tickets drawn at our AGM.
‘Scandinavian Modern’: Nordic Design Behind the Scenes
Sep 23, 2025
Finnish designers played a huge part in the ‘Scandinavian Modern’ movement of the 1950s. It was a style that took America and Europe by storm with its cool functionality, natural materials and organic curves. But, lurking behind the scenes, were hidden hands and powerful political projects. It wasn’t just the social democratic urge to change consumer taste into something more rational. Nordic design became embroiled in a US plot to unite the West under one ‘democratic’ design idiom, to unsettle the Soviet bloc, and to demonstrate that America had culture and taste. Indeed Finland covertly used the opportunity to display its Western credentials to America at a time of Finlandisation.
This illustrated talk features designers and architects including Alvar & Aino Aalto, Tapio Wirkkala, Timo Sarpaneva, Bruno Mathsson, Josef Frank, Astrid Sampe, Hans Wegner, Finn Juhl, Arne Jacobsen, Charles & Ray Eames and George Nelson. It looks at major design exhibitions between 1930 and 1960 in Stockholm, Berlin, the United States, Helsinki, Helsingborg and Moscow. And it examines why modernism became such a useful Cold War tool, why ‘Finnish’ design suddenly became ‘Scandinavian’, and how a functionalist movement for the masses was transformed into an elite luxury style.
Bio:
James Vaux is a member of the Anglo-Finnish Society and an Accredited Arts Society Lecturer, specialising in Nordic art and design and modernism more generally. In 2025 he has 50 talks all over the country and hopes to spread a wider understanding of Nordic culture. He holds a recent MA in Scandinavian Studies (Language, Culture and History) from UCL, where his dissertation was on the politics of Nordic design in the Cold War. He has also studied design at the Inchbald School and Mid-Century Modern at Sotheby’s Institute. Before retirement he was a managing director and global partner of the international bank Rothschild & Co. He was head of the bank’s Nordic operations, which he founded together with Pehr Gyllenhammar. He lived and worked in Stockholm, and amongst other roles across the region he acted as an adviser to the Finnish, Danish and Swedish Ministries of Finance.
A pre-talk drinks reception and lunch are also being organised in Lincoln’s Inn with details to follow nearer the time.