Summer 2020 Cultural activities in Estonia

Several music and other cultural festivals will still take place in summer 2020 but with smaller audience and there are timetable changes

Among those that are not cancelled is Suure-Jaani Music festival that will take place in August and program will be announced in June.

One of the best ways to check the list of concerts and festivals is to check the concert tickets on sale online link from here. The online  tickets on sale of festivals 2020 in Estonia is here.

Pärnu Music Festival 2020 will take place on July 15-23, 2020 and the program is here.

Viljandi Folk Festival is cancelled this summer but two days of Estonian traditional music concerts will substitute the  festival on July 24-25, 2020.

Viru folk festival by sea in Käsmu village is not cancelled and call for folk music lovers on August 7-9, 2020.

The highly popular Leigo Lake Music  Festival in South Estonia is arranged on August 6-8, 2020.

All the festivals mentioned are very much recommended.

Music Estonia's best trade mark

In August 2021 Baltic States, including Estonia will mark already 30th anniversary of the restoration of independence. There is some kind confusion among people not familiar with Baltic States history why the countries celebrate more than one date for their independence. While 1918 is celebrated as the start of independence, 1991 is celebrated as the end of Soviet occupation that started first in 1940 upon the Stalin-Hitler 1939 deal and restarted in 1944 when Red Army reoccupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 90 years of 1918 was celebrated with big musical events in Estonia and no doubt the 30th anniversary 2021 to mark the restoration of independence will bring lot of singing and other cultural events as well.

Musical Estonia sings in 90 years since independence

By Anneli Reigas

when the Baltic state of Estonia was tuning up to mark 90 years of independence in 2008 its celebrations spotlighted the pivotal role of song and music in its history.

"I think it's in our blood to feel so attached to beautiful music," Evald, a Tallinn resident who at 97 is older than his own country, told AFP that summer.

"As a boy I was singing in a choir myself. The emotions we got from the song festivals helped us to keep our spirit during the darkest years of Soviet occupation," he added.

Estonia's song festivals, which draw hundreds of thousands of people and have been organised regularly since 1869, have given its people comfort as they have been shaken by the winds of history and politics.

Estonia declared independence on February 24, 1918, after the communist Russian Revolution brought down the Tsarist empire.

The country enjoyed only 22 years of freedom, before being reoccupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, seized by Nazi Germany in 1941 and again taken over by Moscow in 1944.

Tens of thousands of Estonians were deported to Siberia or fled into Western exile during the five-decade Soviet era.

Music became a symbol of passive resistance to Soviet rule, a way for Estonians to express their national pride, just as was under the Russian empire.

In the Soviet era, Estonians performed in their native tongue, albeit under huge, politically-correct posters of Lenin and Marx.

These festivals ended with a song that was never listed on the official programme: "My Dear Fatherland", written by an Estonian poet in 19th Century, which brought tears to the eyes of hundreds of thousands of audience members who sang along with the choir.

Estonia won back its independence in 1991 from the crumbling Soviet bloc, and the country of 1.3 million people has since worked hard to remind the world that it is no teenage newcomer on the international stage.

Hence the ambitious plans for its 90th anniversary, in which music, of course, will play a major part.

In 2008, world-renowned Estonian musicians, composers and conductors such as Paavo Jarvi are to perform in 37 countries across the globe to celebrate.

"The strong and long music culture in Estonia is definitely one of the best trademarks of our nation," Grammy-award winning Jarvi told AFP.

Jarvi is the chief conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the United States, Germany's Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. He is scheduled to become lead conductor of the Orchestre de Paris in 2010.

He comes from a family that symbolises the Estonians' troubled history of exile and provides sonorous proof of the musical talent of this Baltic nation.

His father, conductor Neeme Jarvi, fled with his wife and three children to the United States in 1980. Paavo's brother Kristjan Jarvi conducts Vienna Tonkunstler Symphony Orchestra, while his sister Maarika Jarvi is a flautist.

Music also played its part in Estonia's independence drive in the dying days of Soviet rule.
The so-called Singing Revolution began in June 1988 when Estonians started to sing anti-Soviet anthems and fly Estonia's banned blue, black and white national flag.

Later Tallinn's song festival venue was used for pro-independence rallies. Emotional memories of the musical opposition will be uppermost next year.

From July 2-5, 2009, Tallinn's vast open-air Baltic shore venue will host the five-yearly national song festival.

Tens of thousands of Estonians practice year-round in their local choir to get a shot at attending the festival, where a single conductor leads a choir of 19,000 -- a size unseen elsewhere.

"When I tell my colleagues abroad about this, I often get the feeling they at first think I'm slightly crazy or I've made it up," Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet told AFP.

The art of old architecture - my sacred village

The art of architecture is a big part of every nations culture. It is a luxury to live in environment that one feels nice and human. To preserve a beautiful architecture is a merit of culture too, it shows respect to generations who were here before us and in a way its part of the bridge to our ancestors and valued heritage.

By Anneli Reigas

If you happen to be in Tallinn and rest has been seen over and over and you wish to see a different Tallinn, take a tram 1 or 2 to Kopli and drive to place called Kopli liinid, a small village with short streets called "liinid" that means lines in English. It is on the coast of the Baltic Sea sea, max 15 min by tram 1 or 2 ride from Tallinn old town, considered very central Tallinn but is very different of the rest of the town. The houses there were for long time partly in ruins there and it has been not the safest place for foreigners to walk around, specially alone and late. But for me it has been the small land of paradise bordered with the Baltic Sea, and with endless childhood memories that included looking often how Sun fell asleep into sea.

By now, 2020 the venue is safe and a completely new village is under construction there - and it looks really beautiful, like a museum. Namely, after few decades of postponing the reconstruction of the area the new village is built now, and what makes it special is that houses look similar as the ones built over 100 years ago, and even streets are partly built with small stones like they were in old times, but new modern amendments are made.

Our village - poor but very intellectual

When I lived there many of the few hundreds villagers who lived there knew each another, their parents and grandparents had lived there before WWII and the village was in good order, not like at the end of last decade of 1900s and start of new millennium when most of its ex-inhabitants had left. By summer 2019 first new and renovated houses had started to bring life and and long lost order back to our village.

At our house only one person  lived there after new millennium arrived - an old lady, Saima Krikk, who for few decades worked as a fashion designer at the Tallinn fashion house Tallinna Moemaja. The fashion magazine Siluett published by them in Estonian and Russian during Soviet era was not famous only in Estonia but known all over Soviet Union. I had to envy Saima for the look at sea that she had from her windows and that I was missing once we moved away in 1979.

We had also an opera singer and few professors living there that time. Tallinn University of Technology has had for long one of their faculties nearby, just a short walking distance or one tram stop from the village, and many children who grow up at that village went to study there after graduating from high school. The spirit at the village felt intellectual and made me to understand already in childhood you do not really need much of those things you buy for money or some fancy title to be a great person.

When Robert Nerman, historian who did a very good job to write and publish books about the history of different Tallinn districts, published a book about Kopli (its the name of bigger area than the small Kopli village nearby sea) that also included many pages about our village, I recognized how other people who had lived at that village have had the very same feelings and memories about our time there.

Growing up there with the Baltic Sea in front of you, and knowing its sea only dividing you from the Finland and Sweden and the rest of the free world it felt like the Soviet empire started behind me and it was our very own corner of the land that belonged fully to us. You could see two Soviet border guards watch-houses there and I saw often late night two border guards making their walk on beach, but there was nothing Soviet at that village - it felt really different.

Anyway, there were rules. Do not go to walk on bay too far in winter when its covered with ice or you might get shot! That rule I knew from the very early years. Sister of the husband of my aunt broke that rule - Vilma was shot to leg by border guards when she was still a child. She told me few years ago nobody ever asked sorry from her or from her mother and after all, she was lucky at least to survive.

We had also some nice not at all Soviet-minded Russian families (and very few not nice) living in that village and some at our house. Some of them had like Estonians lived in that village since pre-WWII time and we had good relations with all good people.

My mucisian father Juhan (1942-1968) and mother Leida who were born few weeks apart in autumn 1942 grew up in the very same village and were friends, sweethearts and classmates since kids there and as soon as they were grown up, got married.

Sea, Grannie and books widening the horizont

I recall my grandmother Elfriede (who had lived at the same village since 1930s with her husband Johan) as my best friend until she left 1979. She was also my very own first history teacher and she also taught me lot of those few things in life that you usually learn - if at all - later in life with years starting to share experiences. She lived close to us at the closest house to sea and I had my own room at her flat that had two windows with one of them so close to sea you could throw a stone from the window into the sea. It has even happened that sometimes during the storm sea waves hit her house, Whenever I went there, she was doing one thing - reading some book - that she always put aside when I had ringed her doorbell and stepped in.

She used to insist me often always to remember I am a Swede, not Estonian but I never really felt it like that. But there was a Swede that had found a place in my heart, like she had found a place in hearts of millions of children around the Baltic Sea and elsewhere and whom I started to adore soon after I learned to read - Astrid Lindgren. I kept reading her books over and over, loving most the story about Melkersson´s family (and their adorable friend Tjorven), Kalle Blomquist and Pipi.

When I called Astrid Lindgren from NK department store in central Stockholm in May 1989, being already 26 then, the very last day of my first visit to Sweden to ask her whether she will be available to give me an interview when I come to Stockholm next time there must have been probably something in my voice that made her to ask me to come to her home right away. Her phone number was not public, but I had got it from the Dagens Nyheter (Swedish daily). I wrote about that warm meeting also at the Dagens Nyheter net site dedicated for her when she passed away and got some really adorable letters from other Lindgren admirers later.

If you listen the few small clips I took from the interview with her to that blog, you will probably recognize what a great respect I felt for her. I was so sad they did not give Astrid Lindgren the Nobel prize in literature that she certainly deserved for being one of the world greatest authors of books for children. It was an extraordinary to meet that woman whom millions have loved but who left me impression as not just a very warm but also a very modest person, a lot like was my grandmother.

Among other things she told me she was blessed to have had two environments to grow up when she was a child - a farm and a nice town very close to that farm. She also said the childhood she had was a lot like she describes in her book Bullerby and that her father loved a lot her mother and told it so every day.

The other author I enjoyed most while teen was Ernest Hemingway, his Farewell to Arms was among my most favorite books.

1979, piece of harmony left behind

Even that probably no other kid at that village had a luxury to grow up with such a grandmother as I did, most of them had a privilege to go to the same school as me and that nowadays is called Tallinn Art High School, that was at the other side of the park from our village.

It was a a unic school that time in all Soviet Union because it was the very first and one of very few also later that got the right to use a special teaching program on arts since first grade to last grade. It made the school also to have some international touch as we had often visitors from West. The man behind the idea and also the Head of the Art Classes for decades at the school was Leo Tõnisson who was like a moving monument-reminder of the-once-upon a time free Estonia at our school. Leo Tõnisson lived in Tallinn until he perished in 2015 (and if you happen to know some Finnish you can find my interviw with him published at the Finnish daily Turun Sanomat at my blog in Finnish.) His father Aleksander Tõnisson was a Mayor of Tallinn when Soviets took Estonia over. And most of all Aleksander Tõnisson was known as a famous Estonian military commander during the Estonian War of Independence 1918-1920.

When I went to Tartu University in 1981 I learned first time with a surprise how some young Estonians also from my generation had grown up to be really Soviet-minded and spoked and acted that way. So it probably has a really great role who are the people who play the greatest role in your life when you just start to discover that world and to figure out for what you have been sent here.

I lived at our small Kopli village since 1963 to 1979 and when we moved to new place to one of those Soviet era built apartment blocks after my mum got a flat there in winter 1979 (we finally had warm running water, central heating and even first bathroom at home) I got a cultural shock - I didnt care about these modern things but felt like I had left Republic of Estonia behind, and had to get settled now in that Soviet environment, partly because I had to leave the village and partly because few weeks before we moved my grandmother Elfriede had also left me and this world.

And I am telling it all only because when you go to that village that looked for few decades a ghetto and has gone into rebirth by now you know that for me it is one of those places that I always feel like sacred when I go there, that I have done at least once in summer during all these years since we left the village in 1979.

Do you know that TALLINN OLD TOWN is in  UNESCO heritage list? Check it out here.

https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/822/

Estonia tries cultural charm offensive in Russia

Estonia´s next song and dance festival will take place in 2022, 1-3 July in Tallinn. Come to join us, unic chance to see over 30 000 people singing in one choir under just one conductor and parade in national customs of thousands of people.

Estonia tries cultural charm offensive in Russia

Estonia tries cultural charm offensive in Russia

by Anneli Reigas

TALLINN - Political ties with its Soviet-era overlord may be at their frostiest since independence in 1991, but Estonia has embarked on a cultural charm offensive to try to win hearts and minds in Russia.

At the forefront is "Georg", a new biopic about Georg Ots, a baritone from the Baltic state who won admiration across the Soviet Union during an operatic career which was cut short by his untimely death in 1975.

Concerts organised by Estonia in Russia in Ots' memory -- the most recent was a few weeks ago in Saint Petersburg -- remain regular sell-outs.

The film, which is due to be released in Russia in February 2008, pulls at the audience's heart strings as it recounts the story of Ots' life and loves.

Starring opposite 39-year-old Estonian actor Marko Matvere, who plays Ots, is Russian actress Anastasia Makeyeva, 26, who portrays the singer's second wife Asta.

"When we did the film I realised that the younger generation of Russians hardly knows anything about Ots," said producer.

"Even Anastasia told us that she knew almost nothing about him before she asked her parents."

Ots' story is a reminder of the days before little Estonia became a bugbear for its giant neighbour, and is a symbol of his people's complex relationship with Russia.

He was born in 1920, shortly after Estonia had won independence following the collapse of the tsarist empire. During World War II he served in the Estonian armed forces. Then was forced to join the invading Soviet army or face prison.

His career flowered after Estonia was reoccupied by Moscow in the wake of the conflict, and he became a household name across the Soviet Union.

At 2.1 million euros (3.0 million dollars), the movie is the most expensive Estonian film ever made, and has been co-produced with Russian and Finnish investors.

Estonia regained its independence from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991.

The drive for freedom in the late 1980s had a cultural edge: it became known as the Singing Revolution, as hundreds of thousands of people flocked to traditional choral festivals which came to symbolise passive resistance to Soviet rule.

In addition to the Ots movie, Estonia is putting out other feelers to music-loving Russians. Aivar Mae, director of the Estonian Concert Agency, has launched a project to build a new music venue in downtown city of Saint Petersburg.

The concert hall will be located in the Russian city's St. John church that belonged to Estonian community in Saint Petersburg already before WWII.

Listen Estonian Classical Radio for concerts and recordings

You will get to Classical Radio channel from Tallinn clicking HERE, but you need to know a bit Estonian to find you way there. So here are few tips:

LIVE from Tallinn : To listen concerts LIVE pick the month first in the calendar located below the word "Kontserdiülekanded", then pick the date, look the time (and find out you know what is the time difference between your local time and time in Estonia). On date and time selected click "Kuula reaalajas" thats right and at top on the site and then choose whether you use Windows Media or Real Audio. Account they say some introduction words in Estonian before the concert starts.

LISTEN RECENT TALLINN CONCERTS FROM ARCHIVE: For that find first on right words "kuula saadete arhiivi", then click it and next find at the site words "Täna kontserdisaalis". You will get a list of some recent concerts in Tallinn that you can listen from archive. Account again they say some introduction words in Estonian before the concerts start.

https://klassikaraadio.err.ee/

Tiny nation, great mucisians

One of the helms of Estonia´s music summer has been for long Pärnu Music Festival, organized by Järvi music dynasty, The festival concerts and academy for conductors will take place also in summer 2020 but for the academy is this year only local participants due to global restrictions. You are all however invited to festival concerts. For Pärnu Music Festival 2020, July 15-23 concerts check the concert dates and program here

Estonia's Jarvi family hold reunion concert in Tallinn

By ANNELI REIGAS, AFP

TALLINN: Nearly 30 years after Neeme Jarvi took his family and left the Soviet Union for the United States, the conductor from tiny Estonia who has become a global music giant will hold a homecoming concert in Tallinn that spans the generations.
Sharing the conductor's baton with Jarvi for the concert in the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn on Saturday will be his sons, Paavo Jarvi and Kristjan Jarvi.
Daughter Maarika Jarvi, a flautist, will be a featured solo artist in the concert, while a handful of Neeme's grandchildren will be in the audience.
The entire family will be travelling to Estonia especially for the concert, with Grammy-award winner Paavo arriving at the last minute because of professional commitments in Germany.
The concert is not only a birthday celebration for Jarvi, who will be 70 on June 7, but also a homecoming for the entire family, which has kept alive its love of Estonia despite long years spent outside the Baltic state.
"Although my family and I have been living far away from our homeland for 27 years, we have always remained attached to our Estonian roots," Neeme Jarvi told AFP.
"It's a great honour to be a member of a tiny nation of around only one million people that has survived wars and occupations by Russians, Germans and even Danes and Swedes," said Jarvi, who is currently chief conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in the United States.

After working for 17 years as a conductor in his native Estonia, which was a Soviet republic from 1945 until 1991, Jarvi took his wife Liilia and three children and fled the Soviet Union in 1980.

With just 200 US dollars to his name, he emigrated to the United States, where he was immediately snapped up by Columbia Artists.

His debut concerts in exile were with major US orchestras : the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

"When I left the Soviet Union it was like a prison - whenever I was invited to conduct in the West, it was up to Moscow to decide whether I could go. And they never let me take the kids," he said.

"When we finally left the empire behind, with almost no money, the new job proposals came very quickly. I learnt from that, that if you want to open the door to new opportunities, you have to be free to take those opportunities."

Jarvi will share the baton with his sons Paavo and Kristjan at Saturday's sold-out concert.

They will conduct the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, with Maarika featuring as a solo artist on the flute.

Tenor Juhan Tralla will be the featured soloist of the Estonian National Male Choir, which is also taking part in the concert of Sibelius' Finlandia, movements of the Aladdin Suite by Nielsen; and works by Liszt and Estonian composers Tormis, Kapp and Eller.

For 44-year-old Paavo Jarvi, conducting an orchestra is a childhood dream come true.

"As a kid I used to sit for hours at the concert hall, watching my father's rehearsals and dreaming that perhaps one day it will be me standing in front of the orchestra," said Paavo, who won a Grammy award in 2003 for his recordings of Sibelius cantatas.

Paavo Järvi is currently lead conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the United States, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, and regularly guest conducts around the world.

Kristjan Järvi conducts the Vienna Tonkunstler Symphony Orchestra, and is artistic director of the New York Absolute Ensemble, which has a repertory running from Renaissance to rock music. He established the ensemble in 1993.

From their outposts around the world, the Jarvi family watched with dismay the riots that rocked Tallinn in April, triggered when a monument to Soviet soldiers who fought fascism in World War II was removed from the centre of the city.

Paavo thinks he has a solution to the violence that erupted in the riots and the ensuing anti-Estonian rhetoric from Moscow.

"We should start changing the way we teach history at school," he told AFP.

"It would be much better to teach kids history through music history, because if we keep teaching history the way we do now, from one war to the next, we will continue to raise our kids with the wrong mentality," said the father of two, who admits that, as a child, he didn't know "that some families do something else for a job, other than music."

For Estonians, the Jarvi family concert is a reminder of the role music has played in the country's history.

Estonians sang their way through the Soviet occupation that began at the end of World War II, and with their "Singing Revolution" -- peaceful, musical demonstrations in the late 1980s -- opened the gates to renewed independence in 1991.

In 1979, when she was 11 years old, Jana Vaabel attended the last concert Jarvi conducted in Tallinn before taking his family out of the Soviet Union.

August 2012 in Germany Wiesbaden 

with Paavo Järvi after his concert.

"All of us here in Estonia feel great pride at having produced such world-class musicians," the now 38-year-old hairdresser told AFP.

Vaabel was unable to get tickets to the concert but intends to go along to the concert hall on Saturday to see if anyone is selling a seat.

Dancing nun trained Estonians

Estonian song and dance festival, organized regularly since 1869 is globally known for majestic singing choir that can get some 30 000 singers to perform under one conductor on huge stage but Estonia also has dance festival concerts always during the song and dance festival at other location. Thousands of dancers performing in different national dresses - they differ by regions - dance two days at several concerts to tens of thousands in audience. But although those dances are almost always Estonian dances some young Estonians have been lucky to learn a very exotic dance skills under training of - Bridgettine nun in Tallinn Pirita Bridgettine Abbey. Here is the story.

By Anneli Reigas, AFP  

With Mother Riccarda, long time head of 

Tallinn Bridgettine Abbey. After 38 years of

life in Europe, mostly in Estonia and Finland

Mother Riccarda returned to Mexico in spring 2017.

Her warmth and light remained in lot of people 

she met during her years in Tallinn and'

we all hope some day she will return

to live in Tallinn Brdigetiine Abbey again.

TALLINN: As another long, dark winter
enshrouds the northernmost of the Baltic states, a
band of girls gathers in a convent in Tallinn, not to
share the warmth of communal prayer but to study the
art of bodily expression with a dancing nun from
India.

Sister Creszenzia, 37, originally from Calicut in the
south Indian state of Kerala, has been giving Indian
dance lessons at the convent since her arrival in
Estonia four years ago.

"When I see Estonians performing these dances with
such grace, my heart fills with pride," she said after
a recent class.

"People here are said to be reserved and unwilling to
show emotions, but I have the opposite impression,"
she added.

Most of Sister Creszenzia's pupils are young, between
seven and 17.

"The dancing is very hard -- like a fitness program --
and afterwards I am very tired," said Ingrid Aavola,
17, who has attended classes since they began four
years ago.

"But I like it a lot, partly because Sister Crescenzia
is a very joyful nun," she added.

In September, the Sister's youthful dance troupe gave
a performance to mark the ordination of French-born
Philippe Jourdan as the first Catholic bishop since
World War II in this overwhelmingly Lutheran country.

"Indian dances tell a story with the body," Sister
Crescenzia explained. The saga performed for Jourdan's
ordination was "about unhappy love -- the battle of a
young couple whose feelings were denounced by their
families, resulting in the death of the boy," she
said.

And how did the good bishop feel about this rather
spicy dance drama?

"I think it is very positive that the convent offers
these girls the possibility to learn Indian dance," he
said. "I liked their dancing, it was rather exotic."

"True feelings are nothing to be ashamed about," said
Sister Crescenzia, whose given name was Mary. "I was
in love myself when I was a young girl in India but
now my soul is dedicated to God."

A convent has stood on the site where the dance
classes are held since 1419. But only in 2001 -- after
a break of several centuries -- did nuns once again
take up residence in the renovated complex, which
includes a church and hostel, built by the Sisters of
the Order of St. Birgitta.

The nuns wake up every morning at 5:45, say their
first prayer at 6:10 and then attend mass at 7:30.
Once a month every nun has a free day -- she can sleep
in but still has to pray.

"A nun's life has changed a lot in recent decades, for
the better. The dance course is proof of that," Sister
Creszenzia said.

Other nuns in the convent have different hobbies.
Mexican-born Mother Riccarda, who heads the convent,
practices ikebana, the Japanese art of flower
arranging.

"These days people value money too much. They should
cherish their families more and look for happiness in
less materialistic things. In poor countries like
Mexico and India, people seem somehow happier than in
the rich West," the mother superior said.

Estonia's 1.33 million people are mainly Lutheran,
with a minuscule Catholic community numbering around
6,000.