Värttinä

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Värttinä (Finnish for spindle) is a Finnish folk music band that was started as a project by Sari and Mari Kaasinen back in 1983 in the village of Rääkkylä, in Karelia, the southeastern region of Finland. Many transformations have taken place in the band since then. Värttinä shot into fame with the release of their 1990 album Oi Dai.

As of 2006, the band consists of three lead female vocalists supported by six acoustic musicians. The vocalists sing in the Karelian dialect of the Finnish language. Värttinä collaborated with A. R. Rahman, a famous composer from India, in composing the music for The Lord of the Rings musical, which opened in Toronto on March 23, 2006.

In August 2005, Värttinä recorded their tenth studio album called Miero at Finnvox studios, Helsinki. It was released on January 25, 2006 in Finland, and January 30, 2006 worldwide. Värttinä is also in the midst of producing the Värttinä Live DVD, which will include material from their 20th anniversary concert and other new and archive material. Its release is planned for spring 2006.

Värttinä has been featured on popular children's show Arthur. They were called "Binky." They sung their hit song Matalii ja mustii from the album Seleniko.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Old Värttinä

The birth of Värttinä was heavily influenced by two sisters, Sari and Mari Kaasinen, from Rääkkylä. Guided by their mother, they had performed poems from the 1970s as a group named Tsupukat. After the group ceased in 1983, the girls established Värttinä, which they entered into a youth arts event and made their way into the finals. The following year they changed poem reading into singing, and this time the group won that same competition. In 1985 Värttinä, now having male members as well, made its first appearance in the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival. Folk music circles became aware of the band as the one singing "korkeelta ja kovvoo" (high and loud).

Sari Kaasinen had became the leading member of Värttinä, and children in Rääkkylä were eager to join the band; as its biggest, the group accompanied 21 children. When the group finally couldn't be made any bigger, Sari established a band called Sirmakka for the youngest ones wanting to join.

In the beginning of 1987 Värttinä was selected as the "Ensemble of the Year" in Kaustinen. Their first record, Värttinä, was recorded in the following spring. Instruments used were kantele, acoustic guitar, double bass, violin, accordion, saxophone, flute, and tin whistle. They gained more publicity and, according to a guess by Sari Kaasinen, made over a hundred performances in one year.

Their next album Musta lindu was released in the summer of 1989. Playing skills and confidence had improved with age and experience, which can well be heard on the record. The pieces were Mari songs collected by Sari Kaasinen on her journeys; one of them was a composition of her own. In the end of the summer, returning home from Åland, it seemed that Värttinä had come to the end of its journey. The Kaasinen sisters, Janne Lappalainen, Kirsi Kähkönen and Minna Rautiainen didn't want to give up, though, as they had just found their own way of making music, and the beginning of the new Värttinä followed.

[edit] New Värttinä

In the beginning of the 1990s, the whole aforementioned group had moved to Helsinki and started training in premises of the Sibelius Academy. Sari started singing with the other girls, and the background line-up stabilized as consisting of Janne Lappalainen, Tommi Viksten, Tom Nyman, Riitta Potinoja, and Kari Reiman. Värttinä made a demo record which led to a recording contract with Sonet Records. The single Marilaulu, released in the autumn, increased the public interest even more, and the album Oi Dai, released in the spring of 1991, became the band's breakthrough. They had now formed their style, which consisted of strong and energetic female singing, music pieces based on the Fenno-Ugric music tradition, and a band playing acoustic instruments. The style they created, mixing folk music into rock, jazz and popular music, was unheard of before.

The year 1992 brought a lot of concerts and the Emma Award, and some members were changed due to the tightening pace. In the end of the year, the album Seleniko was released with more compositions by the band than before. The record rose to the top of European world music charts and stayed there for three months. The album was released also in the USA, and the next year, when Oi Dai was released in the USA, too, the band started its first North-American tour.

After Seleniko, Antto Varilo became the guitarist and Pekka Lehti the bassist. On Aitara, recorded in the autumn of 1994, Anssi Nykänen plays the drums, but Marko Timonen played them in concerts. The record made it to the charts again and it was remembered for the tracks Tumala and Outona omilla mailla. The band toured around the North America and Europe. Many were interested in the women's distincive way of singing, and they made an appearance on a record of Maggie Reilly.

Värttinä's sixth album Kokko was released in the end of 1996. The familiar note "trad." was not found in the credits of the pieces any more; the whole material was made by the band itself. After the release of Kokko, Värttinä started its first tours in Japan and Australia, even though Sari Kaasinen had to leave the band for family reasons, and only three women were left as singers.

In August of 1998 their seventh album, Vihma, was released under the record company Wicklow Records, established by Paddy Malone from the band Chieftains along with BMG. Värttinä's style can be said to have changed in Vihma. All compositions were made by the band's male members, and they contained more complex changes in time and also the singing melodies became rhythmically more diverse. Vihma made it to the charts around the world like its predecessors. Music from the album was also heard on the American children's television show Arthur.

During the winter 1998-1999 Värttinä experienced yet another change of members. Susan Aho, originally joined to replace Riitta Kossi (previously Potinoja), became a permanent front-row singer, and Markku Lepistö joined to replace her as an accordionist. Riikka Väyrynen replaced the singer Sirpa Reiman.

In June 1999 Värttinä was awarded the BASF Master Award, given to artists, producers, recorders and studios for records gaining chart success and at the same time displaying high technical and artistic quality. The award has previously been given to e.g. Metallica and Shania Twain. After the award Värttinä moved to the studio to record their next album Ilmatar, released in the beginning of 2000. Ilmatar took the experimental and diverse style of Vihma even further. Äijö became the most popular song of this album, featured by singer Ismo Alanko. During the year, Värttinä toured around Japan and Europe, ending the tour in the Savoy theatre in Helsinki, where a live album of the same name was recorded on December 6. It was released in the beginning of the next year, simultaneously with the book Korkeelta ja kovvoo by Kimmo Nevalainen. In 2001 Ilmatar was released in Brazil, and Värttinä performed in the Rock in Rio festival in Rio de Janeiro for more than 200,000 people.

[edit] Värttinä today

In 2001 Värttinä's line-up was changed again, when Johanna Virtanen joined to replace Riikka Timonen (previously Väyrynen) who had left the band, and Jaakko Lukkarinen replaced the drummer Marko Timonen. A bit later the violinist Kari Reiman, bassist Pekka Lehti and singer Kirsi Kähkönen left the band, too. Reiman was replaced by Lassi Logren, who had already been in the old Värttinä in his childhood. Hannu Rantanen became the bassist. Both had performed in the band before as substitutes. Värttinä started its "third era" with the singer trio Kaasinen-Aho-Virtanen. The first release with this line-up was Iki in 2003, when the band also celebrated its 20th anniversary.

Later in the same year Värttinä was invited to compose music for the The Lord of the Rings musical, based on the book by J. R. R. Tolkien. The premiere was originally meant to be in London but was later moved to Toronto. The budget of the production, described as the world's most expensive, was around twenty million euros or 25 million US dollars. Värttinä composed music for two and a half years together with A.R. Rahman, coordinated by Christopher Nightingale. The musical, directed by Matthew Warchus, was premiered on March 23, 2006.

In December 2005 Värttinä was awarded the Finland Prize, awarded yearly by the Finnish Ministry of Education for considerable artistic merits and remarkable professional achievements. In January 2006 Värttinä released their eleventh album Miero. The album was the band's first one to be made under Real World Records, established by Peter Gabriel.

[edit] Trivia

  • In 1994, Värttinä recorded the traditional Finnish song "Annukka Suaren Neito" for French producer Hector Zazou's album Chansons des mers froides (Songs from the Cold Seas). As all that remained of the song was the form, Sari Kaasinen wrote lyrics about the legend of Annukka, a young woman who hopes to marry a man who lives in the ocean.

[edit] Current lineup

  • Mari Kaasinen (vocals)
  • Susan Aho (vocals)
  • Johanna Virtanen (vocals)
  • Janne Lappalainen (bouzouki, saxophone)
  • Lassi Logren (fiddle)
  • Markku Lepistö (accordion)
  • Hannu Rantanen (bass)
  • Antto Varilo (guitars, cümbüş tambur)
  • Jaakko Lukkarinen (drums, percussion)

[edit] Discography

[edit] External links

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