Pulkkinen/Räss/Sadovska / Finland/Switzerland/Ukraine
Music of extreme beauty – based on the sources and on one tradition, but at the same time a cross-culture meeting of various sensitivities from three parts of Europe.
The outstanding Finnish singer Outi Pulkkinen explores and draws artistic inspiration from the tradition of runic songs. Her common project with Mariana Sadovska (Ukraine) and Nadia Räss (Switzerland) is unique in that it is a creative meeting of the archaic forms of songs from different cultural backgrounds: the runic song tradition and Kalevala (Pulkkinen), Ukrainian ritual songs and the white voice (Sadovska) and Alpine tradition of yodelling (Räss). Yodelling is now in the advanced stage of procedure to be included on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List. The cooperation between the artists has resulted in moving contemporary music, deeply rooted in tradition.
Mariana Sadovska hails from Lviv. She is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and actress. She cooperated with such artists as Michael Alpert, Anthony Coleman and Frank London in New York and other places. Kronos Quartet commisioned her to compose Chernobyl. The Harvest she later performed with the Quartet. The Polish audience knows her from her cooperation with OPT Gardzienice (Metamorfozy record), Kwartet Jorgi (the programme Pieśni uroczne, not released on the record), Stilo (Szukaj record) and Wojciech Waglewski (Harmonia project and record).
Outi Pulkkinen is best known from vocal experiment and as an expert in Finnish folk. She also plays the traditional fiddle – jouhikko. She explores centuries old tradition of runic songs. On the other hand she proposes a modern form of combining movement and speech with improvised music and vocals.
Nadia Räss’ greatest passion is yodelling – a traditional form of singing, characterised by alternate use of different vocal registers. The joint project of the artists received an ovation in Switzerland, so they set off for other countries to share their music.
The concerts took place in 2017.