Year 2021 was about reformation. The festival in March was the last for Jaakko Kuusisto as an artistic director and Elena Mîndru-Turunen had started as a new managing director in January 2021. With Covid-19 still around, the concerts of the festival were organized as live stream concerts instead of with audience.
The program of the festival included chamber music, symphony concerts and Argentinian tango, and culminated in a concert called Farewell, where the new artistic directors of Oulu Music Festival, violinist Elina Vähälä and saxophonist Jukka Perko, performed together with Oulu Sinfonia, lead by Jaakko Kuusisto.