Jori Hulkkonen

What relevance does Sibelius – and his big anniversary – hold for the wider Finnish music and culture scene in 2015? Andrew Mellor asked five musicians from outside the classical music tradition.

The pop-music Finland of 2004 is no longer just “the land of a thousand sad and sorry songs”, as the classic Eppu Normaali quipped some twenty years ago. The former backwoods have become a baking oven for every conceivable subgenre of popular music, turning out appetizing fare to suit all tastes, from fancies for the cake-shop window to savoury nibbles for the basement bash.