Karoliina Kantlilenen

Finnish singer Karoliina Kantelinen is one of the most important interpreters of Karelian yoik songs. These archaic, often wordless songs tell stories or simply memories of familiar gestures, but they are also songs to animals and natural phenomena. For the Sami people in northern Scandinavia in particular, joiks have been ritual, shamanic songs for centuries and have been repeatedly banned by the authorities. As an ethnomusicologist, Karoliina Kantelinen also researches these songs, which she performs to a wider audience in world-famous ensembles such as Värttinä.