Kantele-GO! Youth Forum ended on a high note

Submitted by KA3100 on
Hymn by Sergei Stangrit

On February 8, 2020 final concert of the Kantele-GO! Youth Forum took place in Kostomuksha. 60 young kantele players from Petrozavdosk, Pryazha, Essoila and Kondopoga performed “Hymn” (music by Sergei Stangrit, lyrics by Anna Kovaleva) at the International Festival “Kanteletar”.

This year kantele forum was held in the runosong area close to the Finnish - Russian border at the same time with the  annual Kanteletar Folk Festival.   During  5 days young kantele performers practiced kantele, visited festival events and shared their skills and impressions with each other.   Kantele teachers Nadezhda Drobyshevskaya, Alevtina Voitovich and Tatiana Trunova helped them to learn new playing techniques and new kantele music pieces that could be used later  in the music life.   Young musicians also made  their mini concert presentations and  after the project presentation made by Olga Vlasova, the Kantele-GO! project manager, realised that they are now a part of a big kantele music development program.  

The Kantele-GO! project team expresses their gratitude to Natalia Lebed, the director of Cultural Centre “Druzhba” in Kostomuksha, Valentina Karhunen, the leader of folk ensemble “Gornitsa”, and Irina Semakova, ethnomusicologist, for their help in organizing the Youth Forum.

Special thanks go to our kantele teachers Nadezhda Drobyshevskaya and Alevtina Voitovich who worked on new repertoire and young kantele players’ performing skills for 5 days. And also to all participants who shared their skills and knowledge to kantele students and teachers: kantele teacher Tatiana Trunova, leader of “Pikkurilli” folk group Anna Kovaleva, kantele teachersand Ensemble Kantele performer Aleksandra Sakharova, student of the Petrozavodsk State Glazunov Conservatoire Radis Gainiiatov.

7 young kantele performers’ ensembles were represented at the Youth Forum: youth studio of the Karelian National Song and Dance Ensemble Kantele and their leader Aleksandra Sakharova; kantele students from the Pryazha School of Arts and their teachers Dmitri Mukhorin, Marina Lukina, Julia Tolmacheva, Valentina Chernyakova; kantele students from the Kondopoga Children’s School of Arts and their teacher Anna Kovaleva; students of the Petrozavdosk School of Arts and Petrozavdosk Music College and their teacher Nadezhda Drobyshevskaya; young visitors of the Cultural centers in Kostomuksha and Voknavolok and their teachers Valentina Karhunen, Valentina Minina and Nina Kalinicheva; students of the Kalevala Children’s Music School under the leadership of Yuri Gladyshev.