I lived my childhood and youth in an isolated small village in the Eastern Finland, near the Russian boarder. Before going to school I shared an upstairs room with my deeply religious grandmother and we sang hymns and other religious songs together. I started to play the kantele when I was six, and after that the instrument has traveled through my life, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker. My deepest interest lies in the ancient, improvised, meditative kantele music, from which only few documents are left. But I feel those stories, fragments of music, poems and instruments so powerful, sending roots down to the dim past and some brances inside me. ---
"...Having played a few dances, the man fell silent, claiming he knew no more. The kantele player was forgotten. There he sat alone in his corner, his kantele on his knees, staring in front of him. Gradually he began to play, softly, at times with a greater display of feeling and warmth, at others so that he was barely audible. On being told that this was precisely what we wished to hear, and being asked what he was playing, he replied that it was nothing, that he was simply playing his own power. We, therefore, left him in peace, each going about our business. But the kantele player, no longer asked any questions and being left to his own devices, played throughout the evening, and what a pleasure it was to listen to him..." (Relander, O.: "O. Hainari. Muistelmia" [O.Hainari. Memoirs]. Helsinki 1917).
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Dear Arja ~ I could listen to your wonderful music for weeks on end ... Very happy to meet you here on the space ... Thank you ... kindest regards to you and yours, Peter
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