Wednesday 28.3 at 6pm: ‘Multidimensional kantele’ by Olga Shishkina

Dear friend of Arkadia, You are invited to “Multidimensional kantele” by Olga Shishkina on Wednesday 28.3 at 6pm. Olga Shishkina is a gusli and kantele artist whose individual style results from versatile studies of different instruments and musical genres. In this concert you will have the rare opportunity to hear music by Bach and Chick Corea (plus other material, including Olga’s own)performed on acoustic & electric kanteles and guslis. www.youtube.com/olgagusli www.myspace.com/olga.shishkina Welcome! Warm regards, Ian www.arkadiabookshop.fi -Entrance is free and green tea will be offered. A donation of €2 (or more!) to fund the event is suggested and would be most welcome. Olga Shishkina Before moving to Helsinki in 2008, Olga graduated summa cum laude from St.Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory where she specialised in gusli and at the same time studied piano, organ and orchestral conducting. Since 2008 she has been studying towards a Masters in concert kantele at Sibelius Academy from where she is about to graduate this spring. Having been always interested in expanding the possibilities of the instrument and never being satisfied with its current status, Olga has invented many new playing techniques for gusli that laid out the basis for a number of arrangements and transcriptions of piano and violin repertoire written by her. In those she tried to overcome the existing stereotypes of a folk instrument and bring it to the new level. Being an integral part of her repertoire, Olga’s arrangements are still otherwise rarely played because of their demanding nature. Throughout her musical career she has got a number of awards, the most significant of them the 2nd prize at the prestigious 6th All-Russian Competition for professional folk instruments artists (2001, Tver) where the 16-year old became the youngest prize-winner in the competition’s history. In 2011 she got the third prize and the special prize from the Society of Finnish composers at the First International Kantele Competition. Other awards include a grant from the Russian Ministry of Culture, the title “Hope of Russia” and the “Star of Prometheus” award from the Worldwide Club of Petersburgers. Despite her profound classical training, Olga is one of those unique musicians who goes beyond established frames and gets inspiration from the variety of musical styles. Since 2001 she has been participating in a number of folk music camps, and in 2009-2011 she had a go at jazz piano that helped her find new ways of self expression and gave an opportunity to participate in various projects. In 2009 she formed a duo project with one of the leading Finnish guitarists Timo Kämäräinen where she played electric kantele. As a kantele player she has appeared on a number of records, among them Saara Aalto “Angels” (2011) and Pepe Deluxe “Queen of the Wave” (2012). She has performed in the UK, USA, Japan and many European countries.