Kaustinen ICH Academy 2025
Kaustinen ICH (Intangible Cultural Heritage) Academy lecture and seminar programme in connection with the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival, including the fifth Kaustinen ICH Seminar. Speakers will come from a total of fourteen countries in Europe and beyond. Daily lectures from Tuesday to Friday at 14–16.30 will present the perspectives of Finnish and international experts and researchers on safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. At the end of each day, participants will be introduced to different perspectives on Kaustinen fiddle playing, which was inscribed to UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021.
The lecture and seminar program is being organized for the second time in connection with the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival and also includes the fifth time organized Kaustinen ICH Seminar, with speakers from a total of fourteen countries in Europe and beyond. The Finnish Folk Music Institute and the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival organize the Kaustinen ICH Academy in collaboration with the University of the Arts Helsinki and Centria University of Applied Sciences. The program is in English.
All lectures and seminars are free of charge and open to everyone and do not require the purchase of an admission ticket to the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival.
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TUE 8.7. 14.00 Museum Hall
14.00 Emmi Kujanpää: Transnational European Contemporary Folk Singing: Activist Agency and Experiences of Gender
14.30 Ľubica Voľanská: Living Traditions in Slovakia: impact of UNESCO Convention 2003 on the safeguarding
15.00 Nadja Räss: Yodeling from Switzerland – The UNESCO nomination process
15.45 Jurgita Zvinklyte ja Matti Palonen: Sutartine – Lithuanian ICH and its challenges adapting to contemporary music
16.15 Antti Kautonen: Kaustinen fiddle playing & migration
16.30 Tour of the Finnish Folk Instrument Museum exhibition Kaustinen fiddle playing – a living heritage
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WED 11.30–13.30 Museum Hall
Seminar: ICH North – passing on our musical heritage
The seminar will review the activities and results of the three-year Nordic Interreg project. How is musical heritage passed down from generation to generation today, how can archive work be carried out in a community-oriented manner, and whether Polish material could be included as a joint Nordic item on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List? Seminar language: English.
11.30 Sara Kåll-Fröjdö: Welcome to the seminar – What is ICH North
11.40 Roser Gabriel: Musical living room
12.00 Outi Valo ja Heidi Henriikka Mäkelä: Culturally sustainable field trips to historical folk music
12.20 Bengt Wittgren & Britta Knapp: Polska as living heritage
12.40 Johanna Björkholm: What happens when we pass on traditions
13.00 Annika Mylläri & Kati Hyvönen: Living Musical Heritage open online course
13.20 Discussion
13.30 Closing of the seminar
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WED 9.7. 14.00 Museum Hall
14.00 Le Diable à Cinq -yhtyeen jäsenet: Safeguarding traditional music of Quebec.
14.30 Pushpa Palanchoke: When Preservation Silences: The Heritization of a Women’s Musical Tradition in Nepal
15.00 Vilma Timonen: Folk Music Professionals as Boundary Workers: Mapping the Tensions and Opportunities in Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage through Professional Practice
15.45 Divya Bathia: Safeguarding the traditional music of Rajasthan through Jodhpur RIFF festival
16.15 Anne-Mari Hakamäki: Kaustinen Fiddle Playing and Kaustinen Folk Music Festival
16.30 Tour of the Finnish Folk Instrument Museum exhibition Kaustinen fiddle playing – a living heritage
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THU 10.7. 11.30–13.30 Museum Hall
Seminar: Cultural Spaces: Digital Innovations & safeguarding ICH
At the Digit ICH Erasmus+ project seminar, representatives of UNESCO intangible cultural heritage sites from, among others, Croatia, Georgia, Slovakia and Latvia will talk about their traditions, their protection practices and related digital innovations. Seminar language English
11.30 Musical opening of the seminar
11.35 Māra Rozentāle : Presenting the Digit ICH Erasmus+ project
11.50 Snježana Bogdanić : Local Approaches from Croatia to Safeguarding and Transmitting Intangible Culture
12.20 Maia Gelashvili: Presenting a film from Georgia: Festival “Nanina”
12.50 Juraj Hamar: Activities of the Slovak Intangible Heritage Centre for a digitization and safeguarding of intangible heritage
13.10 Questions and answers
13.25 Musical closing of the seminar
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THU 10.7. 14.00 Museum Hall
14.00 Annukka Saaristo: Tradition, heritage, legacy: Case study on intergenerationality in Finnish rap music
14.30 Elina Seye: The Communities of West African Dance and Music in Finland
15.00 Antti-Ville Villén: Policing musical creativity, diversity and inclusivity – in the name of heritage
15.45 Heidi Henriikka Mäkelä, Outi Valo ja Hannu Linkola: The Pelimanni House in Kaustinen: A Contradictory Stage of Intangible Cultural Heritage
16.15 Lauri Oino: Kaustinen Fiddle Playing Safeguarding Program.
16.30 Tour of the Finnish Folk Instrument Museum exhibition Kaustinen fiddle playing – a living heritage
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FRI 11.7. 14.00 Museum Hall
14.00 Giacomo Botta: Competing Sounds: The Multi-Layering of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) at the Kaustinen Folk Festival
14.30 Paulo Longo: UNESCO Creative City Idanha-A-Nova – Experiences from Portugal
15.00 Velika Stojkova Serafimovska: Safeguarding the Macedonian traditional music as an ICH
15.45 Farshad Sanati: Music as a Bridge: Fostering Cultural Flexibility Through Transcultural Music Education
16.15 Anni Järvelä: Näppäri pedagogy as a bridge to folk music
16.30 Tour of the Finnish Folk Instrument Museum exhibition Kaustinen fiddle playing – a living heritage
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SAT 12.7. 11.00–13.30 Folk Arts Centre, Kaustinen Hall
Seminar: Kaustinen Intangible Cultural Heritage Seminar 2025: Music on the Move – Migration, Resilience and Identity
The seminar will focus on the festival's theme of migration this year, especially from the perspective of the protection of intangible cultural heritage. What is the significance of music and musical heritage when people move from place to place? The seminar will be streamed on the Folk Music Institute's YouTube channel. The seminar language is English.
11.00 Matti Hakamäki: Welcome to the seminar
11.05 Children group Näppärit from Kaustinen
11.15 Ľubica Voľanská – Where Migration Studies Meet Living Heritage: Community Building among Ukrainian Refugees in Slovakia
11.50 Ensemble Didgori : Migration songs
12.00 Panel Discussion – Migration, resilience and identity. Saijaleena Rantanen will host a panel discussion where musicians from different backgrounds reflect on the meaning of “music on the move” in their own lives and on how migration is reflected in their music. The panelists are musicians Karri “Paleface” Miettinen, Michal Elia Kamal, John Westmoreland and Mika “Miša” Saatsi.
13.10 Questions and answers
13.25 Closing song – Michal Elia Kamal