“Now, in our anniversary summer, we only have two streamed gigs scheduled: at Our Festival in Tuusula and at the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival.” ![]() The ensemble had planned to tour the Finnish festival circuit in the summer, the United States and England in the autumn, as well as playing some gigs in Shetland, Norway, Poland, Austria and Germany. Backstage was full of incredulous and even panicky musicians who had lost all their work overnight”, Järvelä remembers. “We had only managed to play one album release concert at the G Livelab in Helsinki, when people suddenly started to cancel everything due to the Coronavirus. They have continued to engage audiences around the world for over two decades, despite slight lineup changes over the years.įrigg’s anniversary year and the launch tour of their anniversary album Frixx was completely derailed by the Coronavirus pandemic. This marked the beginning of the group’s distinct sound, led by the fiddles and supported by the jangling grooves from the plucked string section. When Antti later began his studies at the Sibelius Academy Folk Music Department, he started to see the group’s potential and invited his fellow students, plucked string specialists Tuomas Logrén and Petri Prauda to join the ensemble, as well as the Norwegian Larsen brothers who had been playing with the Järveläs at previous occasions. While still at music high school, she founded the ensemble together with her brother Esko and their cousin Antti. It was a lifesaver for me, something that felt less like practicing and more like fun.”įolk music is an important part of Järvelä’s professional life, with her ensemble Frigg being one of Finland’s most successful folk music groups. ”While studying classical music full time, I kept playing a lot of folk music at the same time. I somehow thought it would be more difficult to get in the music education program!” After finishing the local music high school, I continued my music studies with a music performance degree, and later graduated as a music teacher from the Pirkanmaa University of Applied Sciences, although it was definitely teaching that had interested me ever since my early teens. Playing was a part of everyday life, just like going to school, and even teenagers accept that as a status quo. For a Kaustinen child, however, my musical journey was pretty standard. “My family was always playing, and I was given my first violin so young that I have absolutely no recollection of that moment. Mauno Järvelä is also known as the founder of the Näppäri method (link), while Alina Järvelä’s mother Marit is a primary school teacher specialising in music. Both her grandfather Johannes and her father Mauno are recipients of the honorary title of Master Pelimanni. Järvelä’s own extended family is full of folk musicians, or pelimannis in Finnish. The Kaustinen Folk Music Festival was Finland’s first folk music festival when it was first organised in 1968, and it remains the biggest folk music event in the country to this day. ![]() Each village has its own distinct playing style which continues to get passed on through playing together. The Kaustinen fiddling tradition has recently been nominated for inclusion in UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, asking to recognise a culture of fiddle playing that has thrived in the region ever since the 1700s. “My musical journey is far from usual, having grown up in such a peculiar place as Kaustinen”, Järvelä says. She still finds the time to tour with the folk music supergroup Frigg in Finland and abroad, and sometimes she even manages to schedule in some early music projects. ![]() With a full-time violin teaching position at the Nurmijärvi Music Institute, Alina Järvelä ’s everyday life is filled with teaching.
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