FMQ 2/2014

"Finnish actress Irina Björklund, now based in France, has been translating songs Finns love into French. Some songs on her second such album, La vie est une fête, are from the 1950s, but there are newer classics too."

"Olli Mustonen made his mark as both pianist and composer in his early teens, showing astonishing maturity in both capacities. But recordings have not kept up with his output promptly enough to allow the outside world to form a clear image of his development as composer: it has been 13 years since a CD of his music was last released, and he has written two symphonies in that time."

"The members of the AR Quartet are young. (-) Still, the touch is mature to a degree that makes their self-titled album one of the strongest jazz debuts from Finland in many years."

"Combining influences like Finnish tango, Balkan music and Finnish pelimanni music isn’t easy, but they get it all to sound like just Sväng music. On their fourth studio record, I feel more pelimanni music presence than in a long time."

What is music with a social message? A project examining Finnish art music of the present millennium and addressing the ability of music to comment on society is revealing various aspects of human existence, from the individual to the community and from the environment to supragenerics.

A new book and a forthcoming doctoral dissertation give us a fascinating insight into the culture of DJs and DJing in Finland.

"A new Finnish research project is seeking to shed more light on the biological background to musical aptitude. A pioneering study at international level, it aims to understand the biology and evolution of human cognitive functions in music."

Playing it safe and following others was never an option for Eicca Toppinen. When faced with a career crossroads before reaching his twenties, he chose the unknown. And the unlikely international metal success story Apocalyptica was born.

The turn of the 20th century is conventionally referred to as the era when the national musical culture of Finland was born. On closer inspection, however, we find its roots in the transnational context of general European art music, which also included the popular music of the day.

"Archaeological excavations in Finland have uncovered a large number of bells, pellet bells and other objects created for producing sound. These findings offer us a new, fascinating sonic window into the so far unknown soundscape of the Iron Age and complement the writing of history of more recent eras."

"Although music analysis research, measured as a percentage of Finnish musicological studies, may have declined in the past decades due to changes in paedagogics, performing arts and culture, it has also become more diverse and attained a very high level of quality, to the point of being at the cutting edge."

Transnationality has been a big thing in international cultural studies for the past decade. At the moment, there are several major research projects in the pipeline in Finnish music studies addressing issues across national borders.

"The golden oldies of Finnish tradition have become adequately unruly as they’ve flown overseas, and found new aspects both in the song material and the soundscapes."