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Written in fRoots issue 326/327, 2010


VTQ
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Ääniä AANIA-15 (2009)

Finland’s now successful application of pickups to concert and small kanteles has made it possible for them to work assertively in a band situation, and Vilma Timonen has been a pioneer in that direction, an influential player, composer and teacher among the new wave of able players and a maker of connections for her instrument with musicians from outside the folk and classical scenes.
     Here the Vilma Timonen Quartet, VTQ, plays an elegantly melodic short set of originals and developments of traditional material, some with her serene vocals, in which the kanteles, while maintaining much of the delicacy of their high strings and the warmth of the big concert kantele’s bass end, more than hold their own as a lead instrument among substantially hefty Finnish-jazz-inflected playing from Topi Korhonen’s guitar and trumpet, Ape Anttila’s electric and double basses and Mikko Hassinen’s drumkit. www.aania.fi


© 2010 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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Kansanmusiikki-instituutti (Finland's national Folk Music Institute).

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