TIMO VÄÄNÄNEN INSPIRED BY FINLAND'S NATIONAL INSTRUMENT
"Already at an early age I started to improvise on the kantele"

ONTREI DUO: TIMO VÄÄNÄNEN AND MASTER INSTRUMENT MAKER RAUNO NIEMINEN

Timo continues: "The atmosphere at the academy was fantastic, it was just heaven for a musician who is interested in many styles and multi-artistic work. We also performed very much with dance and theatre and learned about visual arts, too. Another element which was unique, was the fact that at the Sibelius Academy you can study folk music on an academic level, both for kantele and other instruments. I studied with the famous composer, kantele player and professor Martti Pokela. That was very impressive. Actually, we had an amazing time together. He has been very important for the development of folk music and kantele playing, but in the first lesson, in 1989, when I met him he said, to my surprise: I am fed up with folk music, we are going to play contemporary music. That was a logical continuation of what I had learned before. We also worked a lot by ear, without notation. He was passionate about the kantele, but didn't want folk music any longer. He wanted to create something new. Later I wrote a book with the compositions we had made, for future generations. For me he was a role model of an artist, he was not just a musician, he was free, he was able to create his own musical world."
"At the same time I studied folk music with Toivo Alaspää, also a self-taught kantele player. He was a famous folk player, he came from Ostrobothnia, a region where they have a strong kantele tradition. It was wonderful to study with him, because he also created his own musical universe. It was like going back 100 years in time with him. He could play old tunes and even if he could play some new tunes, his style was old. He was a truck driver who, much to his own surprise, was appointed kantele teacher at the Sibelius Academy. During my studies with him I learned a lot of traditional tuines and I also recorded one CD with him."
Fokus | Välke | glimmer
Duo Mitrej: Päivi Järvinen & Timo Väänänen. Fokus is a live dance and music performance for a video camera. Performers are Päivi Järvinen, dance and Timo Väänänen, kantele and lyre.
Timo Väänänen is well-known for his explorations on sound effects and live looping systems on the kantele. A kantele is a traditional plucked string instrument of the zither family. Its relatives can be found throughout the world, including Estonian kannel, Mari kärš, Russian gusli, Latvian kokle, and Lithuanian kanklès. Kantele is also similar to the ancient Asian instruments such as Chinese gu zheng and the Japanese koto.
Timo Väänänen has developed a multidisciplinary method for his artistic dissertation at the Sibelius Academy Folk Department and used elements of music, dance, theatre, improvisation, composition, photography and mask work in the process. He completed his dissertation "Faces - visions of kantele", in 2008. Timo currently enjoys a five-year grant from the Finnish Arts Council.
The Kanteleen Kielin project
Timo is also a leader of a two-year kantele research project that studies the kantele-related instruments in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. He also produced a 17-part radio series together with Leena Häkkinen for YLE Radio 1 Kansanmusiikinilta. This series featured 16 different ethnic groups that play kantele-like instruments in Northeast Europe and West Siberia.
The Kanteleen Kielin project started in 2010 and is lasting now 4 years and two months. The project team has published the first part of the book series that will eventually comprise 4 books. Timo Väänänen was the head editor, writer, layout designer and photographer of the first book of the Kanteleen Kielin project. A music album has also been published and exhibitions and artistic projects have been organized. The aim is to describe people who play kantele-like instruments in the present day and provide a wide background of their culture, history and language.
Duo Mitrej: Päivi Järvinen & Timo Väänänen. Fokus is a live dance and music performance for a video camera. Performers are Päivi Järvinen, dance and Timo Väänänen, kantele and lyre.
Further information is available on: www.timo.maanite.fi