Stories by

Musician and composer Maria Kalaniemi has been overturning popular conceptions about the accordion and music played on it for almost three decades now. Active in many areas, she is also engaged in research, teaching and festival planning.

"Satellite Stories have already gained notable international attention for some years. Their merits include sold-out clubs in London, tracks with millions of listens on Spotify, and their third album, Vagabonds, produced by internationally renowned producer Barny Barnicott, who has collaborated with Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian, among others."

"In 2015, JPP is still alive and kicking, and playing with as high quality as ever. They don’t play too often, but when they do there is a nice relaxed touch, and they don’t take it all too seriously. "

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.

"The microphones are going to take some time to catch up with the astonishing flood of Finnish instrumental concertos since the turn of the 21st century, so it’s good to be able to welcome the first recording of Jouni Kaipainen’s Trumpet Concerto, written in 2003 to a commission from the soloist here, Pasi Pirinen, to whom it is also dedicated."

"Whether this is an opera, a form of music theatre, a happening or an extravaganza does not matter."

Jimi Tenor has never been an easy subject for anyone trying to label his work. Seemingly free of genre boundaries, the musical vocabulary in Tenor-land has just expanded further with his new project, Itetune. This time the artist has even created his own instruments.

What happens if you put forty folk musicians and their instruments in one room once a month for a couple of years? The Sibelius Academy Folk Big Band is leading the way for Finnish folk instrument orchestras.

Finland has taken the potato from Peru — potato in Finnish is peruna, by the way — and the tango from Argentina. Both these South American imports are cultivated in these northern latitudes perhaps even more devotedly than in their countries of origin. Pekka Gronow reports on the way in which the tango has taken root in Finland and stubbornly survived even the arrival of Elvis and The Beatles.