[2][circular reference] Along with the new-music appreciation group Korvat auki (Finnish "Ears open"), it did much to bring new music to listeners in Finland in the 1980s and 1990s.
Toimii was formed to be a laboratory where composers, instrumentalists, and other artists could work on new ways of creating music and improvising.
Toimii was born when Magnus Lindberg, Otto Romanowski, and Esa-Pekka Salonen were preparing a concert performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Plus-Minus.
Magnus Lindberg's 1985 work Kraft was written as a concerto for Toimii and a Symphony Orchestra, the ensemble has toured around the world performing the piece so far 14 times and has recorded it twice.
Toimii also performed several very successful children's concerts at the Suvisoitto-festival in Finland, at the Ojai Music Festival, and at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, The last performances of the ensemble to date were in December 2001 at the Related Rocks Festival in London and in 2003 in Helsinki where they also made their second recording of Lindberg's Kraft.