Mari Kalkun

Today, the kantele inspires composers and performers across genre boundaries. Musician Maija Kauhanen and composer Adina Dumitrescu discuss the instrument from their respective perspectives.

The nature of folk music has always included the shameless borrowing of refreshing material from elsewhere – right now Baltic Finnish influences are rising to the top in Finland.

Even though a tunnel passing underneath the Gulf of Finland is but a distant dream, there already exists a strong spiritual link between the countries of Finland and Estonia. A bridge built on music started forming right after Estonia became an independent state.

"It is a refreshing experience for a Finn to listen to Tii ilo: there’s musically something quite familiar, but you don’t get much of the lyrics."