GENTLEMANIAK

ORCHESTRA

Helsinki/Finland based composer/singer Rene Ertomaa started planning the early version of Gentlemaniak already at the end of the 90’s. (At that time the band was named Maestria.) He wanted to start an ensemble of which would perform music without any specific genre or style. As a lover of classical music, progressive rock as well as new wave pop/rock of the early 80’s he thought the style of the band could be a fertile mixture of more or less all these styles. Thus the first version of Gentlemaniak was already a certain kind of a big band. The band recorded two EP’s: the first one named The Prelude (with the name Rene Maurier & His Orchestra) was recorded 1998 and the second with the name Maestria EP 2001. The band received some attention and was the only group in the history of the TV music program Jyrki who took strings and a harp to the live TV performance. Things did not develop the way Rene would have wanted so he decided to put an end to the whole thing and to concentrate on his compositional and singing studies he had started at the London College of Music. This was a beginning of a very long pause for Maestria. Rene graduated from the LCM and composed music for several stage and theatre productions for example the Finnish National Theatre, Espoo Theatre, Theatre Academy, Savoy Theatre, Zodiak Dance Theatre etc. In some of them he also performed as a singer. A few times also as an actor.

Rene’s affection towards classical music had conquered his mind completely and he had applied to continue his compositional studies for the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff. He also participated on several composition and singing master courses in England, Italy and Finland. During those years he composed his first lied (song) cycle called Nostradamus and started composing an opera named King of Brutalia. He finished the opera during the autumn 2020.

After he graduated from the RWCMD he continued composing the opera and composed also his second song cycle Varjo & valo (Shadow & Light) based on the rock musician/poet/novelist A.W.Yrjänä’s poems. During the years Rene kept composing music and writing lyrics for Gentlemaniak. Bearing in his mind the words ”some day.”

That day finally arrived a few years ago when Rene asked if his close friend, the drummer Antti Polameri would like to start Maestria again. The two had been making music sporadically for years. Antti had played keyboards on the first concert of the RM & His Orchestra and Rene had played bass in Antti’s Music for Martial Arts stage work. Otherwise they've had their own musical paths. Antti said yes. Things started to develop little by little and the new line up of Gentlemaniak had taken shape:

RENE ERTOMAA - Lead & Background Vocals, Keyboards/Piano, 5-str. Fretless Bass, Percussion
ANSSI SEPPÄ-LASSILA - Guitar
ANTTI POLAMERI - Drums, Background Vocals
PETRI HEIMONEN - Flute, Saxophone, Bass Clarinet
RISTA TUURA - Violin
INKA EEROLA - Violin
PASI VUOTI - Viola
TUURE PAALANEN - Cello

As the band was about to start making a new recording Rene decided to rekindle his earlier insrtument by playing the bass himself. With this process the band started to work at Timo Seppälä’s Dante’s Cave studios and the new recording was finished during the autumn 2020.