Emilia Lajunen

"This music is clearly made for dancing – but in what way? That is for the listener to decide: one can dance Finnish and Karelian folk dances with their familiar steps to this music or listen to the metal sounds and make a mosh pit out of it."

When violins first reached the shores of Finland via Sweden sometime during the 17th and 18th centuries, it seems that they jumped straight into the Perho River and swam upstream to the Central Ostrobothnian village of Kaustinen. The local playing tradition has remained unbroken ever since, with each village boasting its own unique playing style. Now the Kaustinen fiddle tradition has been nominated for inclusion in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

While music as a profession or hobby is not the worst imaginable environmental polluter, no-one in our time and age can afford to think they are above environmental responsibility. Musicians experience eco-anxiety especially for the amount of travel associated with their profession. What can an individual musician or music consumer do to help the environment, and is it possible to achieve change through music?

"If I had to choose one recording to preserve for the future or to send off to space in order to illustrate humankind’s history and humaneness, this album would get my vote."

In summer 2015 fiddler Emilia Lajunen will undertook a concert tour of Finland by bicycle. Two months, more than 20 concerts at music festivals, over 2000 kilometres. The idea of the tour was to return to the roots of the Finnish tradition of vagabond fiddlers. On the other hand, the idea was to save the world by showing that a CO2-free tour is possible even today.