As part of Finland 100 year celebration Juminkeko Foundation and Sibelius Academy Folk Music Department arrange whole Finland wide Rune Song Day on 25th of april, 2017. During the day concerts and other activities will be arranged in those towns that Lönnrot has gathered material to Kalevala or has been working around script of epic.
On very same date long time ago Elias Lönnrot met Arhippa Perttunen, the best rune singer of Viena Karelia and gave great amount of material to be used in Finnish national epic Kalevala.
Main concerts will be held in Juminkeko, Kuhmo and village of Hietajärvi in Suommussalmi. Other towns arranging concerts will be Kajaani, Sotkamo, Ristijärvi, Hyrynsalmi, Helsinki, Viitasaari, Kiuruvesi, Rautalampi, Hämeenlinna, Pieksämäki, Juva and Joensuu. Concerts will feature performances by rune singers of today like Taito Hoffrén, Pekka Huttu-Hiltunen, Anna Fält, Maari Kallberg, Anna-Kaisa Liedes and more.
Rune songs are one of the eldest part of finnish culture and go back even two thousand years. Golden era of rune songs were 19th century. During last twenty years rune songs have seen new coming as Sibelius Academy and few other concervatories have taken its teaching and reasearch into their program.
