In recent years, Kaustinen Festival Week has become the ”Finnish arena” for intangible cultural heritage, a grassroots meeting place for folk music enthusiasts and professionals, but also for foreign researchers and students.
Programme director Anne-Mari Hakamäki says that the festival is backed up by important encounters at top national and international seminars in the field.
- Interest from around the world has increased since the Kausti violin was inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage List in December 2021 after years of process.
This week, the festival will host researchers and students from Sweden, France, Taiwan, Estonia and other countries. This year, the festival has launched a new Kaustinen ICH Academy lecture and seminar series. The domestic seminars on Tuesday and Wednesday explored the future of folk music and the regional attraction made possible by UNESCO.
On Friday from 17:00, a hybrid seminar in the Museum Hall of the People's Art Centre will discuss the role of research in the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
Showcase bands gathering
An international delegation is now visiting Kaustinen to see what kind of emerging talent Finland has this year. In particular, they will look at the showcase bands selected by the festival, which this year are HOSTIKA, Organic food and Ilkka Heinonen.
On Wednesday morning, the delegation watched the bands give a one-minute presentation of themselves in English and play a song. On Wednesday evening they will have consecutive shows at Kallioklub: at 20.15 Luomuduo, at 21.45 Ilkka Heinonen and at 23.15 HOSTIKKA.
The power of folk music
Saturday's summit seminar Kaustinen ICH Seminar 2024 is linked to the global goal of making culture part of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Programme Director Anne-Mari Hakamäki sees international seminars as an important part of the festival week's events.
- Our festival always makes a big impression on foreign visitors. Community orientation is at the core: we don't separate amateurs and professionals, but everyone performs and works together.
- Of course, the seminar will also feature music: in the large Kaustinen Hall of the Folk Art Centre, accordion virtuoso Antti Paalanen with their friends from Brittany and young Kaustinen Pointers playing.
The seminar, starting at 11am on Saturday, will be addressed by a leading national intangible cultural heritage expert Martin Sundin from Sweden and a sustainable development expert John Crowley From Ireland.
Other seminar participants and panelists include specialist Leena Marsio The National Board of Antiquities, Public Relations Officer Annika Lyytikäinen from KULTA, Director of the Folk Music Institute Matti Hakamäki and Markku Wilenius, Professor of Futures Studies at the University of Turku and UNESCO Professor of Transformative Learning and Planetary Futures.
Admission to the seminars is free. Read more here
PHOTO: International Kaustinen: performers from every continent, researchers gathered in seminars and this delegation to watch rising stars, especially showcase bands. Photographer: Risto Savolainen