Our project is coming to an end

Our project is for the greatest part already ended, but some of our collaborators will still be visiting Finland in 2024. We are also editing a collection of articles on the themes of the Women – Music – Futures symposium that took place last March.

At the end of last year, two articles on topics we have been discussing during the project, especially the collaborations across cultural borders, were published in the issue 2/2023 of Musiikin suunta.

Musiikin suunta 2/2023 cover

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Conversations on the collaborations of researchers and musicians

Closing seminar of World Wide Women and Kyynelkanavat projects

Friday, 10 November 2023, 3pm – 6 pm, Helsinki Collegium, Common Room, Fabianinkatu 24A, 3rd floor

This event brings researchers and artists into conversation about producing knowledge together. Through live music and discussions, panelists will demonstrate the different modes of collaboration and offer insights from their experiences. They will discuss openly about their new discoveries, and the exciting as well as challenging moments of their work. They will address questions such as: how team members define their individual roles and agree on ways of working together towards the shared goal of the project? How do the academic and artistic sides of the project complement or differ from each other, what is the balance between them and what issues of power there might be? What have we learned from each other? Can the collaborations within our projects be used as models for future projects combining art and research?

Kyynelkanavat project on Parppeinvaara in Ilomantsi

This event presents two projects that include researcher-musical artist collaboration as a core element of knowledge production:

  • World Wide Women – Female Musicians Crossing Borders and Building Futures project (University of Helsinki) studies and supports women musicians in their own communities and in the globally connected music world.
  • Kyynelkanavat – Laments in Contemporary Finland project (University of Eastern Finland) approaches the lamenting tradition and its role in modern Finnish society through the perspectives of body, experience, religion, communality, emotions and affect.

Both of these projects have been funded by the Kone Foundation and are soon concluding. The event is organized in collaboration with Etnosoi! festival and the Helsinki Collegium.

World Wide Women project at the University of Helsinki, Topelia building

The primary language of the seminar is English, but questions from the audience are welcome also in Finnish. The program includes also short musical performances.

The event is free, no advance registration needed! Welcome!

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Public examination of Ying-Hsien Chen’s dissertation

Ying-Hsien Chen will defend her doctoral dissertation entitled “Plucking the Forest Sound: the Transculturation of the Finnish Kantele in Japan” in the Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki, on 28 August 2023 at 12.

The public examination will take place in the festive hall of the Language Centre, Festive Hall, address: Fabianinkatu 26. Check the University of Helsinki’s website for more details and the streaming link for following the examination online.

Hiroko Ara in memoriam

WRITTEN BY Ying Hsien Chen
Hiroko Ara at Hokkaido University, July 1st 2018. Photo by Ying Hsien Chen.

For the past week, Hiroko Ara has been in our thoughts.

Hiroko Ara was supposed to be in Finland this March for our Women-Music-Futures symposium to share her music (with Haruhiko Saga, as Rauma duo) and her career as a kantele professional in Japan. Last week, we received heartbreaking news from Japan. She passed away on May 5th.
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Public examination of Siboné Oroza’s dissertation

Siboné Oroza will defend her doctoral dissertation entitled “‘When I’m on Stage, I Rule’ – Cholita Futurism in Cochabamba, Bolivia” in the Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki, on Friday, 28 April 28th 2023 at 1 p.m. The public examination will take place in the main building of the University of Helsinki, lecture room U3032, address Unioninkatu 34. You can also follow the examination online.  Check the University of Helsinki’s website for all details and streaming link.

The documentary film (more info here) based on Siboné Oroza’s fieldwork materials will be screened the day before, Thursday, April 27th at 4 p.m., at the Festive Hall of the University of Helsinki’s Language Centre (Fabianinkatu 26, 3rd floor). The screening is organized by the Finnish Society for Ethnomusicology in collaboration with the discipline of Musicology at the University of Helsinki and it is free and open to anyone interested.

The duo Eve Crazy & Mar Yo will be performing in two concerts during December

The Senegalese rap artist Eve Crazy (Awa Sané) and Marjo Smolander have been working on new songs together for the upcoming album of the duo. The duo will present their new music live in Joensuu and Helsinki on the following dates:

Thursday, 1 December. Sointula, Joensuu. At 20.00, tickets 5 € (duo): https://www.facebook.com/events/818379232702531/

Saturday, 10 December. Helsinki, Vuotalo. At 18.00, tickets 10/8 € (together with a band): http://www.vuotalo.fi/fi/tapahtumat/event/555843A0E35FF49D9E5EDCA69E7CDF19/Eve_Crazy___Mar_Yo__levynjulkaisukeikka

Video footage of Eve Crazy & Mar Yo performing live at the opening party of Etnosoi! festival on 4 November 2022 (Tanner, Helsinki). If the video is not working, please accept all the cookies first and try again after that.

Mini seminar at Etnosoi! festival on November 12th 2022

Welcome to hear the latest news of our project, and also more broadly about women musicians’ activities in Mali and Senegal, on Saturday, November 12th 2022 starting at 3 p.m. in Global Music Centre in Helsinki (Hämeentie 34 D, entrance in the courtyard)! This mini seminar is part of Etnosoi! festival. The seminar will be held mainly in Finnish (more info in the Finnish language version).

Music crossing borders on Fri, 9. Sept 2022

We will have an afterparty for the Crossing Borders in Music and Research seminar at Tenho Restobar in Kallio. The concert is open to everyone, even if you are not attending the seminar. There will be several musical performances that all cross borders in one way or another. The musical styles are mostly from Latin America and West Africa. The first band starts at 19.00 and the main act Jaranas del Norte will begin at about 20.30.

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Women – Music – Futures

International symposium at the University of Helsinki

March 9th and 10th 2023

Pre-symposium concert on March 8th, International Women’s Day

Call for Proposals

In many communities around the world, women are important culture bearers fostering the transmission of local traditions to future generations. However, women also forge new roles in their communities in order to express themselves and to get their voices heard. In these efforts for empowerment, music can serve as a tool for refashioning oneself and one’s place in society, thereby building futures that might not have been possible otherwise. Music also frequently serves as a space for imagination and dreaming, for experimentation with alternative ideas about the past, the present, and the future.

The aim of this symposium is to discuss the agency of women musicians worldwide, and the ways in which they use music to construct imaginary or real futures for themselves. Often working in patriarchal environments and restricted by social norms and expectations of their communities, women demonstrate significant resilience and creativity as they seek to create space for musical activities. In this regard, mutual support and networks between women are important. Sometimes women choose music because it provides a platform for presenting their views and/or influencing their communities in ways that would not be allowed otherwise.

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