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"The interplay between the hard-charging and the low-key provides a tantalising backdrop for Paakki’s masterful playing and compositions."

"A tasting menu of contemporary Finnish jazz recorded at Berlin’s Monarch Bar."

Are you interested in a lively and authentic debate about contemporary music? FMQ probes interesting aspects of music in, from and beyond Finland. Subscribe to our e-newsletter to receive monthly news about our publications.

In many respects, Finland is held up as a paragon of equality. Yet even now in 2018 equality has not been fully attained in the music sector. There is a drive to level the playing field, using tools developed jointly by operators in the field.

Folk music through a feminist perspective has been a thing in Sweden for several years, but Finland’s first series of feminist folk music concerts is only now taking place. Singer and journalist Amanda Kauranne and her team explore difficult topics and taboos of womanhood in four concerts.

Folk musician, conductor, composer, guitar hero. Jukka Iisakkila has tried all of that – with flying colours. A new feather in his cap is the recent collaboration with guitarist Steve Vai.

The IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) was an international anarcho-syndicalist union movement, which was founded in 1905 in Chicago. Finns were active in the movement from the 1910s onwards and published three songbooks of their own. These songs, however, have remained largely unheard in Finland. The ensemble Laulava Unioni offers fresh interpretations of music written by the Finnish members of the IWW.

Opera is not necessarily the elitist pursuit of only a small city set. Pentti Tynkkynen, a church musician living at idyllic little Punkaharju in Eastern Finland, composes opera on the community’s terms.

"As a worldwide sub-culture, heavy metal is an excellent example of the specialised communities that emerge in modern society, governed by individual preferences rather than a shared physical environment – similar music tastes or, say, consumer choices."