Culture

As an historic first in North America, the Estonian Cultural Society of Chicago and the NGO Estonian Folk Art and Craft Union will be holding a traditional Estonian folk dress event in northern Illinois from 16-18 June 2023. One of the strongest links among Estonians, no matter where they are in the world, is the […]

“Once upon a Time”, an exhibition curated by the Estonian National Museum, opened on 27 April in Tampere, Finland; the exhibition about fairy tales, heroes and heroines will remain open in Finland until 10 March 2024. “Once upon a Time” is an exhibition about fairy tales, heroes and heroines, the Tartu-based museum said in a

Estonian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mari Kalkun has announced details of her seventh album, and first since signing to Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records; the album, called “The Stories of Stonia”, will be released on 7 July 2023 and is preceded by the single “Tõistmuudu” (“Otherwise”). Co-produced by English folk musician Sam Lee, most of the

“Melchior the Apothecary” trilogy will reach customers of streaming services in the Czech Republic and Germany and the first film of the trilogy will be shown at the FANT film festival in Bilbao, Spain, in May. The rights to trilogy, the detective adventure set in medieval Tallinn, were recently bought by the Czech streaming platform

Silver Lumi directs the Estonian Children’s Choir in Helsinki with a sense of mission to preserve the culture, that can only be done by actively practicing every day; his choir – 15 children from Estonian families – is coming to the Youth Song Celebration for the second time, and so will nine other choirs from

From 26-29 May, the Chicago Estonian School will host a seminar for Estonian teachers, kindergarten and Sunday school leaders operating on the North American soil; these Estonian language days will be taking place at the Chicago Estonian House in Riverwoods, IL. The topics of the event include the involvement of teenagers, methods of active learning,

This year’s Polar Music Prize, Sweden’s most prestigious music prize, has been awarded to Beninese singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo, English music entrepreneur and the founder of Island Records, Chris Blackwell, and the Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt.  The prizes will be awarded in Stockholm on 23 May and will be attended by the Swedish royal family. “The

David Millington reviews “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” – an Estonian documentary by Anna Hints about women who come together in the protective darkness of the smoke sauna, an important part of the Estonian cultural heritage. As a child in Australia in the late eighties, I knew of saunas as a vaguely dirty thing: from my mother’s

Estonia’s largest premiere festival, the Estonian Music Days, has announced the programme of contemporary music concerts taking place from 26 April to 7 May. The two central themes of this year’s festival – “Soul and Spirit” – place different emphases in the concerts of Tallinn and Tartu which at the same time complement each other

Estonian conductor Ingrid Roose and the Paris Orchestra Choir bring Estonian composer Veljo Tormis’s choral work, “Forgotten Peoples”, to the Paris Philharmonic concert hall on 14 March. “Forgotten Peoples”, consisting of six cycles, is considered a masterpiece of Tormis’s choral work. Three parts of the cycle – “Izhorian Epic”, “Votic Wedding Songs” and “Ingrian Evenings”