Finnish folk music is an internationally celebrated, artistically top notch form of art. Keep reading to find out about how we actually got here!

If you are a connoisseur of world music, you’ve most likely stumbled across such names as Värttinä or Kimmo Pohjonen. If you know your opera, you might have heard about Vilma Jää, the vocal prodigy who sang the leading role of composer Kaija Saariaho’s acclaimed work Innocence. And if you’re a fan of Game of Thrones, you surely have noticed the mesmerizing vocals of the group Tuuletar as a part of the show’s marketing.

All of this success wouldn’t be without the Finnish musical education system and the relentless work by the likes of Music Finland in putting Finnish folk music into the international leagues.

Yet it hasn’t always been like this.

After the Second World War the Finnish traditional music lived in a state of depression. A new era of classical and popular music was in its inception, and doing it the old-fashioned way was out of style.

But then came the late 1960s. Also Finland got its fair share of the great American folk music revival and the quest of searching for your own roots. Festivals were formed, bands were born.

One could say that the catalyst of the contemporary folk music era comes down to two things: the master fiddler Konsta Jylhä, and his hometown Kaustinen, a municipality of a few thousand people in the Ostrobothnian countryside. The first Kaustinen Folk Music Festival was held in 1968. To this day, it has kept its status as the flagship of Finnish folk music festivals.

Tradition goes hip!

Another revolutionary thing happened in 1970. The legendary jazz musicians Seppo “The Baron” Paakkunainen (sax) and Edward Vesala (drums) strode into the headquarters of the Finnish Literature Society – a place where all of the old folk poems are archived.

Inspired by the British folk giants Fairport Convention, these jazz rockers decided to take a deep dive into the national tradition. The aforementioned Konsta Jylhä’s band had even performed at the Ruisrock festival, the first Finnish rock festival, the same summer, so suddenly, folk music was hip.

The result was the band Karelia, which interpreted old tunes in an idiosyncratic manner. Their debut album Suomi Pop was, in fact, a minor success, peaking at second place in the national albums chart. The band also tried to go abroad and find a publisher in London, alas, with no success.

All the same, Karelia is considered the first Finnish contemporary folk music band.

A few years later, 20-year-old Sakari Kukko and bassist Antti Hytti founded the band Piirpauke, which draws inspiration from the folk music of different countries. Piirpauke would become the first internationally renowned Finnish world music band.

Revolutions in education

Tampere University got its own (and the only one in Finland) faculty of folklore in the 1960s, later known as the faculty of ethnomusicology. It was a main subject at Tampere University up until the year 2012. The Finnish Folk Music Institute was formed in Kaustinen in 1974, and maybe the most prestigious paradigm shift happened in 1983, when folk music got its own faculty at the Sibelius Academy, the only musical university in Finland.

The education of the people and the institutions had borne fruit. Folk music was considered a serious, artistically and academically worthwhile art form.

Folk music is applied to less formal musical education as well. The Finns have grown accustomed to the national instrument kantele through music lessons all the way from playschool. In its simplest form, the kantele is a 5-stringed lyre that even a child can pluck and create harmonious melodies.

However, the peculiar thing in Finnish music tradition is that it is a synthesis of the east and the west. The runo songs, often accompanied by the kantele, stem from the Karelian tradition, upon which the national epic Kalevala is also built. Instruments like the fiddle, the accordion, and the so-called pelimanni music tradition are a historically newer, western brand of music – simply put!

International breakthrough

The proper international breakthrough of Finnish folk music happened in the 1990s.

This was highly thanks to Värttinä. The band created a folk music boom in Finland, giving a chance for other acts to bloom as well. The legendary Fenno-Karelian powerhouse still keeps going strong after more than 40 years since its formation: their recent album Kyly has peaked both the Transglobal World Music Chart and the World Music Charts this year.

Since then, Finland has enjoyed a steady reputation for excellent quality among the international world music community. In fact, it’s much more acclaimed abroad than in its home country.

The current folk music tradition is also more versatile than ever, showing that Finland is, and has always been, an increasingly multicultural society.

Let’s just name a few examples: the “gangsta folk” trio Dänkki Briha rewrites the Karelian tradition through spoken word and electronic beats, the mother-daughter duo Solju by the joik master Ulla Pirttijärvi and accordionist Hildá Länsman does Sámi music with a nearly pop sensibility, and the trio Wishamalii interprets Andalusian-Palestinian ​​Muwashah songs.

Of course, there are also a myriad of other outstanding artists doing beautiful and groundbreaking music. This Womex autumn is the perfect chance to find your own favourite pics of your own – just dig into the variety of contemporary Nordic sounds and be prepared to get your world shaken!