Estonian and Finnish bands and artists will perform in Japan 22–25 May as part of the export project Finest Sounds that also includes music industry seminars, a trade day and a songwriters’ camp.

The Estonian-Finnish delegation will meet Japanese music industry professionals at a joint reception of Finest Sounds and Estonia 100 in Tokyo’s Happo-en park. The seminar programme in the head office of the entertainment giant Avex Group will offer workshops about Japanese music industry and networking with the local music community. 

Showcase events with the best in jazz world music and metal

Tokyo venues will host showcase gigs by Estonian and Finnish world music, jazz and metal performers on three nights. The world music event at the Shibuya WWW will present Mari Kalkun, the latest winner of Tallinn Music Week artist award, and Curly Strings, who mixes Estonian folk with American bluegrass. Finland will be represented by versatile multi-instrumentalist Maija Kauhanen, experimental accordionist Antti Paalanen and folk hop group Tuuletar.

Nordic metal will shake the Space Odd Shibuya club with performances by the Finnish thrash metal group Mokoma and Estonian doom-metal duo Talbot. On 26 May the jazz ensembles Peedu Kass Momentum and Weekend Guitar Trio from Estonia along Finnish guitarist Olli Hirvonen and avant-garde-fusion group Utopianisti will perform at the Pit Inn Shinjuku club.

Estonian–Finnish songwriting camp and lifestyle brands

Sony Music Tokyo studios will also host a songwriters’ camp that brings together producers and songwriters from Estonia, Finland and Japan. Among the participants are Stig Rästa and Bert Prikenfeld from Estonia and Alex Mattson and Eva Louhivuori from Finland.

On May 26 and 27, Estonian and Finnish brands will be present at the Greenroom festival in Yokohama. Members of Utopianisti will guide a test of the interactive music app Yousician. Estonian design is represented by the jewellery of Tanel Veenre and textiles of Mare Kelpman. Finnish companies are represented among others by design brand Lovi, Nokia Technologies and Moomin Museum.

Finest Sounds showcase events in Tokyo:

• 23.05 Finest World Sounds, Shibuya WWW
  Mari Kalkun, Curly Strings, Tuuletar, Maija Kauhanen, Antti Paalanen

• 25.05 Finest Heavy Music Night, SPACE ODD Shibuya
  Talbot, Mokoma 

• 26.05 Finest Jazz Music Night, Pit Inn Shinjuku
  Weekend Guitar Trio, Olli Hirvonen “New Helsinki“, Peedu Kass Momentum, Utopianisti

Finest Sounds is a Finnish-Estonian cross-border cooperation initiative in the music and creative sector, aiming to boost the export of Estonian and Finnish artists, brands and creative businesses to the world’s second largest music market Japan.

Partners of the project are Tallinn Music Week, Music Estonia, Baltic Film and Media School from Estonia, Music Finland, Music & Media, Tampere University of Applied Sciences and HUMAK University of Applied Siences from Finland. The project is funded by INTERREG from Europa Regional Development Fund.

More info at finestsounds.eu