FREE ADMISSION,  4th March 2022

LIVE at the Musiikkitalo, Helsinki
or via ZOOM https://uniarts.zoom.us/j/66930191508

We are happy to announce the 2nd edition of our Bagpipe Network meeting. The theme of this year’s edition is Forgotten Woodwinds in Museums.

FORGOTTEN WOODWINDS IN MUSEUMS
“Musical instruments are not just like any other “object” in the museum storage. They are like living things, dying away in storage, begging to be played again. At least this is how the musician sees it!
Without producing sound, these objects communicate only part of their story, and sooner or later, silently die away.
– How can we safely bring them back to life again?
– How can we learn from them, extract the most possible data, and hopefully still some music, without damaging them?
– What are the working protocols in place for institutions like the Sibelius Academy and the Finnish museums?
– How may we develop collaborative practices in which we meet the concerns shared by conservators, researchers and musicians, never losing sight of the best interests of the historic objects?
– How do we bring credibility to bagpipe research and fresh air from beyond the regional bubbles of expertise and established thinking?”

WHO IS COMING
This year’s meeting will focus on forgotten woodwinds in museums and will host live at the Musiikkitalo the speakers Zexuan Qiao (China), Barnaby Brown (Scotland), Simon Waters (Northern Ireland), Ulrich Morgenstern (Austria), and Aki Arponen (Finland)
For the first time, the meeting encourages a conversation around bagpipes also between the Sibelius Academy Folk Music and Music Technology Departments, and similar international departments, professors and Doctoral Candidates, coming from the Queen’s University of Belfast (Sonic Arts Research Center), The University of Music and Performing Arts of Vienna, and Cambridge University.

MORNING PRESENTATIONS Black Box – Musiikkitalo

10:00am GMT +02:00 (Helsinki time)

“Opening” Welcoming words by Sibelius Academy, Folk Music Department Prof. Kristiina Ilmonen 

~ 10:00am GMT +02:00 (Helsinki time)

“3D Printing – Revelations from the past, insight into the future” 3D printers have been widely available to the commercial market for over a decade now. This technology has resulted in many innovative music projects over the years. How can we use 3D printing for musical instrument making? This presentation will reveal those 3D-printed instruments, and demonstrate that the technology not only allows us to make new instruments but may also throw light on those from the past. […]  by Zexuan Qiao (China | UK) 

~ 10:30am GMT +02:00 (Helsinki time)

“Problems measuring Hellenic auloi and the Iain Dall chanter” The worlds of historical instrument making are human: a creative chaos characterised by inconsistency and cultural bias. Practice and intention are normally out of alignment. Uplifting knowledge and practical skills are either locked in silos or long dead. What are the key problems dragging down standards? From the perspectives of customer, maker, researcher, and museum curator, Barnaby Brown reflects on 25 years of practical experience breathing life into reconstructions of elite double-reed pipes: the instruments that led worship, accompanied drama, and buried warrior kings. […]  by Barnaby Brown (Scotland | UK)

~ 11:00am GMT +02:00 (Helsinki time)

“Russian reedpipes in museums, in organology and public discourses” Until two decades ago, reed aerophones were nearly absent in the Russian revival scene – due to the loss of ergological skills and, sometimes, to a lower emblematical value as national instruments. Nowadays, non-academic revivalists have gained much more knowledge about these, and many other types of traditional musical instruments, than ethno-organologists. […] by Ulrich Morgenstern (Germany | Austria)

~ 11:30am GMT +02:00 (Helsinki time)

“Entanglements with instruments: Musical Instruments and Museums” Musical instruments are dynamic systems – not static ‘conservable’ objects, but items in a constant state of change, seasoning, adjustment and decay. They are also crucial indices of human activity – narratives of use and value – which can frequently only be appreciated through being actively engaged with. Without such intimate engagement, knowledge is lost. Often the real experts in ‘conservation’ are not conservators, but those ‘private collectors’ who engage in active dialogue with their instruments – players. […]  by Simon Waters (UK | Northern Ireland)

AFTERNOON ACTIVITIES Camerata – Musiikkitalo

~ 14:00 GMT +02:00 (Helsinki time)

CALL TO ACTION ON NEW PROJECTS A wiki for all things bagpipe and other projects
Zexuan Qiao | Gonçalo Cruz

~ 14:30 GMT +02:00 (Helsinki time)

ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION Forgotten Woodwinds in Museums: Can we do better?
Zexuan Qiao | Barnaby Brown | Simon Waters | Ulrich Morgenstern | Aki Arponen
Host: Gonçalo Cruz

~ 16:30 GMT +02:00 (Helsinki time)

CLOSING: INFORMAL MUSIC RECITAL
An Assortment of pipes – Play us a tune, will you?
Open stage to speakers and audience

The second episode of “Piper Staccato – A short interview”, this time with Marieke Van Ransbeeck
Piper staccato, a podcast produced by Gonçalo Cruz, is aimed as an international pro-bono project creating cultural bridges.

On this episode, this talented piper from Belgium lets us know how she became in love with bagpipes and tells us all about her current projects and her band Farandi – www.farandi.com
As usual, she also answered our “Staccato Questioner” – tips & tricks, likes and dislikes, of the world of bagpipes.

Marieke is a former student of the Sibelius Academy (University of the Arts Helsinki).
She holds a Masters in Early Music [LUCA School Of Arts – Leuven, Belgium], a Masters in Nordic Folk [Syddansk Musikkonsercatorium – Esbjerg, Denmark], and an extensive background in piping.
…………………………………………………………….

Nordic Masters in Folk Music:

Syddansk Musikkonservatorium in Esbjerg (DK)
Sibelius Academy in Helsinki (FIN)
Kungliga Musikhögskolan in Stockholm (SWE)
Ole Bull Academy in Voss (NOR).

The 2020 FIL – Festival Interceltique Lorient, appears not to have been cancelled… At least so far.
Every year a different world culture is celebrated. This year’s edition, the 50th, is under the theme “Bretagne” (Brittany) and will take place from the 7th-16th of August 2020.

It was my pleasure to visit the festival in previous editions and to make a podcast covering the event.
I share it here again, under the homeness of the Corona Pandemic, hoping for a “well-thought-out”, “safe”, but “speedy” re-opening of all cultural activities in the world.

It was a great experience with Gustavo Lobão (in the video) and 2 other very close friends and also pipers. An adventure I will certainly repeat in the future…
…will it be this year, I do it?…

Festival Interceltique Lorient

This and other news at www.GoncaloCruz.com/BLOG

Finnd’it founder, Gonçalo Cruz, presented his doctoral research “Forgotten Bagpipes – The Re-design of the Säkkipilli in Finland” at the Musiikkitalo (Helsinki Music Center) on Tuesday 10th March.
He introduced the audience to our project – “The Finnd’ít initiative” – and asked for the support of all.
Here is the video of his presentation, shared and promoted by the University of Arts of Helsinki on their YouTube channel.
The Sibelius Academy is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its Doctor of music degree. So this year, the two-day event called SibA Research Days 2020, had a special flavour. It was a great atmosphere, and I enjoyed very much sharing my ideas, discussing them with fellow researchers, and get in touch with their own particular research projects.

More videos & news at www.GoncaloCruz.com

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

We are happy to announce the Finnd’it Initiative’s 1st ever Network meeting. The theme of this edition is The Latvian Dūdas.
Our friends (unfortunately this time, only a few representatives) visit Helsinki on the 30th NOV 2019. Please make sure to inform us by email if you wish to participate.
All activities are free and open to anyone who shares a passion for music and Bagpipes.

1st edition of the Finnd’it Network meeting
About our visitors

Suitu dūdenieki | Suiti bagpipers
The Western Latvian region of Suitu is inscribed in the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. UNESCO status helped Suiti community to safeguard their unique cultural heritage and to revive some of the lost traditions, as bagpipe playing and making.

GUEST SPEAKERS ATTENDING

Juris Lipsnis (Latvia)
Juris is an Architect by profession, with a strong passion for folk traditions.
He is a Dūdas piper and head of the Latvian folk-group “Suitu dūdenieki”
Juris is a board member of the non profit “Suiti Cultural Heritage”, as well as an organizer of the recent events, gathering Latvian traditional pipers in the Suiti region (2018 and 2019).
Juris has been a Firefighter, a journalist, and currently, also a Lecturer in the Kuldiga Technical School of Technologies and Tourism.
Juris holds a Masters degree (M.Arch) from the Rigas Politehniskais Instituts

Uldis Austriņš (Latvia)
Uldis has been studying and working with Latvian traditional musical instruments for more than 10 years now. He started by making the Latvian Kokle (a form of Kantele), later having picked up on bagpipes.
He has for the last two years been researching bagpipe building techniques and traditions in Latvia by collecting evidence from all available sources – original instruments in museums, written accounts – and also prototype building, inspired by neighboring bagpipes.
Today Uldis is specializing in the bagpipes from the Latvian Suiti region, where more evidence may still be found.

Leanne Barbo (Estonia)
Leanne is the head of Tallinn Dance Club, teaching folklore and kantele at Tabasalu Children’s Music School. She has also, since 2016, been teaching bagpipes and harps at the Tallinn People’s University. Leanne often participates in summer camps all around Europe, teaching kokle, kantele, singing, bagpipe playing and traditional dancing, as well as Masterclasses on Estonian Danish traditions. She has recently started experimenting in harp building.
Leanne has a Master degree in traditional music from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.

Markus Rantanen (Finland)
Markus is a music educator and performing artist, as well as a “Finnd’it initiative” member.
He has specialized in a range of string music instruments – teaches guitar, ukulele, folk music and songwriting at Turun seudun musiikkiopisto.
Markus is also the creator of a performing act for children’s – Maestro Markus, a man who knows everything about folk music and who can play almost every instrument in the world including an assortment of Bagpipes. Maestro Markus and his assistant Doctor Fiktio Fakta have done over 500 performances in schools and kindergartens.
Markus experiments in an assortment of bagpipes, from the German hümmelchen to the bulgarian Gaidja, but has in fact studied first the Estonian torupil bagpipe at the Tartu University Viljandi Culture Academy.
Markus is a book author of four published ukulele books, one children’s book about Finnish folk instruments and one songbook of traditional songs from his hometown, Laitila.
Markus holds a Masters in Music, having graduated from the Sibelius Academy.

Patrik Weckman (Finland)
Patrik is a folk musician and researcher, as well as a “Finnd’it initiative” member.
He started by making small kanteles and jouhikko (bowed lyre) and learning to play them. Inspired by Hedningarna, 20 years ago he acquired is first bagpipe – a Swedish Sackpipa.
Among many other instruments and music styles, he has a special interest in the different folk fiddle styles, especially those from the Finish and Dalarna regions.
As a musician, he has been involved in a wide range of music styles from baroque to rock, from medieval music to rebetika.
Patrik has graduated as an M.D. from the Kuopio university.

Gonçalo Cruz (Portugal)
Gonçalo is a full time Researcher, Musician, Educator & Maker of Bagpipes, as well as the founder of the “Finnd’it initiative”.
He has witnessed first-hand the complete revival process of local bagpipes in Portugal. He has spent the last 20 years researching, playing, teaching and building bagpipes as well as maintaining a professional bagpipe making workshop.
He is also a music composer and guest musician on live and recorded performances, founder of non-profit Portuguese Trad. music organizations such as “arrefole”, “PortoCeltico” or “GaitaMaker”.
Currently he is conducting research as a Doctoral candidate at the Uniarts – Sibelius Academy: “Forgotten Bagpipes – The redesign of the Säkkipilli in Finland”.
Being a piper-musician, a designer-architect and a bagpipe maker, he has been at a unique position to promote the bridging of knowledge between Music Performers, Designers, Historians, Ethno-musicologists, Archaeologists…
Gonçalo holds a Master’s degree in Architecture and a tutor’s pedagogical aptitude certificate.