Music Finland awarded the sixth Finnish Music Export Award to Elements Music Oy, a company that has actively internationalized the Finnish music publishing industry.

The Finnish Music Export Award was given to Elements Music Oy for their long term contribution to songwriting export and firm dedication to internationalize, build and diversify the Finnish music publishing industry. The award was presented by Minister of Economic Affairs Mika Lintilä in Helsinki today.

The Finnish Music Export Award, presented now for the sixth consecutive year, is a recognition given to a Finnish music company that has successfully developed and expanded its international operations and has shown pioneering spirit in exporting Finnish music. The intent behind this award is to create attention to the important work done by music export companies, and also promote these active and growing enterprises. The award was initiated by Music Finland, who also gathered the jury together. The award winner receives their own award plate on the outer wall of the famed rock club Tavastia in Helsinki.

Elements Music was founded by Tommi Tuomainen and Jani Jalonen in 2004 as a record company offering a wide range of services, but as the industry changed, the company soon adjusted its course towards music publishing. At this point, Eero Tolppanen replaced Jalonen as Tomainen’s business partner in Elements Music. From this stage on, the company decided to actively start exporting their songwriters’ work outside Finland. Elements Music now has extensive international networks around the world – in Europe, Asia and the United States. Many of the songwriters signed to the company, for example Axel Ehnström and Mikko Tamminen, write a large part of their music for export markets, and they have successful songs in countries such as Germany, Japan and Korea.

Today, Elements Music not only provides its writers with publishing services, it also serves as their management, and actively seeks to find new songwriting talent from Finland. In addition, the company is involved in running the successful The Grind music studio in Helsinki.

Elements' investments in growth and exports are visible: between 2014 and 2019, its turnover has quadrupled and the value of exports has increased sevenfold. Now about 25 percent of the company's turnover comes from outside Finland. Elements Music’s roster currently includes more than 50 songwriters and the company employs four people full-time.

During its 16 years of operation, Elements Music has grown into a significant player in the music publishing field, which, despite its efforts to exports, has gained a significant position in the domestic market as Finland's largest independent music publisher. Still, Elements Music’s greatest successes lie ahead.

"The Finnish music field has always been first-class in terms of quality, but due to language barriers and historical reasons, many unique success stories have not materialized internationally. In particular, the domestic music publishing industry has shown determined and genre-crossing internationalization for several years, which is apparent in this year’s Music Export Award winner. Elements Music started out as a local representative for a wide set of independent music professionals, but has managed to start a strong international operation. It is great to see that our young music makers are strongly represented both at home and increasingly abroad as well," says Atte Hujanen, a member of the award jury and CEO of Singa.

The jury that selected the winner consisted of Kimmo Aulake (Ministry of Education and Culture), Tapio Hakanen (Finnish Broadcasting Corporation), Atte Hujanen (Singa), Jarkko Jokelainen (freelance journalist), Tomi Korhonen (Business Finland), Laura Liski (Ministry of Employment and the Economy), Rosa Meriläinen (Kulta ry), Kaisa Rönkkö (Music Finland) and Jukka Taskinen (Svart Records).