COURSES 2025
COURSE IN FEMINIST FOLK SINGING (FULL)
29.–31.8.2025, HELSINKI
This workshop takes an intersectional feminist approach to teaching folk singing, exploring dimensions such as gender, nationality, ethnicity and socioeconomic background. Participants are invited to explore how different narratives and vocal techniques intersect in musical expression in the European folk song traditions.
Teachers: Dimitra Kandia & Emmi Kujanpää
Dimitra Κandia originally from Athens, Greece is based in Berlin since 2014. She is interested in folk tales and songs, “discusses” with contemporary poetics, and investigates as a doctoral candidate in Cognitive Neuroscience, the interplay of music and linguistic skills in early development. Apart from her academic research and teaching activity as a lecturer (Psychology/(Music-)Neuroscience), she regularly facilitates an open-level Polyphonic Laboratory, viewing communal singing practices that blend trans-traditional themes and vocal styles as radical acts of empowerment, social cohesion, and change within modern and often alienating urban realities.
Emmi Kujanpää (MA/MMus) is a folk musician and teacher specializing in Balto-Finnic and Bulgarian vocal traditions. Based in Helsinki, she is also a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, with a particular focus on gender in folk music. Since 2006, she has taught folk and world music at various music schools and at the Sibelius Academy. She has led international workshops—especially in Berlin—and for over 15 years, she has conducted the Kukuvitsa choir, known for its performances of Eastern European folk repertoire.
The workshop is supported by Kari Mattila Foundation
ABOUT MY TEACHING
I have worked as a folk music pedagogue for over 20 years in music schools and the Sibelius Academy in Finland, as well as in other European countries and as an online teacher in Japan.
In my folk singing teaching I specialize in Eastern European (mainly Finno-Ugric and Bulgarian) folk vocal production, polyphony, and folk singing ornamentation.
I combine auditory learning, body rhythms, and improvisation. I also apply vocal methods such as Estill and Balance in Phonation to discover a healthy way to sing folk music.
From 2010 I've been conducting Kukuvitsa folk singing choir in Helsinki.
In my kantele teaching I teach all the kantele types from small kanteles to concert kantele. In particular, I teach Karelian kantele improvisation and song accompaniment on the kantele. I also teach Perhonjoki laakso style with big kantele.
I graduated from the Sibelius Academy as a teacher of kantele and folk singing (2011). I have a degree in pedagogy from the University of Helsinki (Teacher's Pedagogical Studies, 2010).