Estonian and Finnish artists performed in Japan from 22nd to 27th May as part of the export project Finest Sounds that also included music industry seminars, a trade day and a songwriters’ camp.
Tokyo venues hosted showcase gigs by Estonian and Finnish world music, jazz and metal performers on three nights. The world music event at the Shibuya WWW on 23rd May presented Mari Kalkun, the latest winner of Tallinn Music Week artist award, and Curly Strings, who mixes Estonian folk with American bluegrass. Finland was represented by versatile multi-instrumentalist Maija Kauhanen, experimental accordionist Antti Paalanen and folk hop group Tuuletar.
Nordic metal will shook the Space Odd Shibuya club on 25th May with performances by the Finnish thrash metal group Mokoma and Estonian doom-metal duo Talbot. On 26th May the jazz ensembles Peedu Kass Momentum and Weekend Guitar Trio from Estonia along Finnish guitarist Olli Hirvonen and avant-garde-fusion group Utopianisti performed at the Pit Inn Shinjuku club.
From 23rd to 24th May Sony Music Tokyo studios hosted a songwriters’ camp that brought together producers and songwriters from Estonia, Finland and Japan. Among the participants were Stig Rästa and Bert Prikenfeld from Estonia and Alex Mattsonand Eva Louhivuori from Finland.
On 26th and 27th May Estonian and Finnish brands were present at the Greenroom festival in Yokohama. Members of Utopianist guided a test of the interactive music app Yousician. Estonian design was represented by the jewellery of Tanel Veenre and textiles of Mare Kelpman. Finnish companies were represented among others by design brand Lovi, Nokian Technologies and Muumin Museum.
Finest Sounds was a Finnish-Estonian cross-border cooperation initiative in the music and creative sector, aiming to boost the export of Estonian and Finnish artists, brands and creative businesses to the world’s second largest music market Japan. Partners of the project were Tallinn Music Week, Music Estonia, Baltic Film and Media School from Estonia, Music Finland, Music & Media, Tampere University of Applied Sciences and HUMAK University of Applied Siences from Finland.
The project was funded by INTERREG from Europa Regional Development Fund.
