This year's Etnosoi! festival celebrates music of European minorities, from Andalucía to Ireland, Turkey to Norway, through a series of concerts, lectures, workshops and an exhibition of underground posters from Finnish Lapland.
Among the highlights are two 70th anniversary concerts honouring the musical hero of Finnish Lapland's indigenous Sámi people, Nils-Aslak ("Áillohaš") Valkeapää (1943-2001). In the 1960s, he raised the profile of the Sámis' eerie chant-like joik singing, which had been repressed by religious authorities.
After a show at Helsinki's Savoy Theatre on Thursday, a second tribute is being staged on Saturday at the Sajos Sámi Cultural Centre in Inari, Lapland.
From Lapland to the world's stages
Leading the tributes are Ulla Pirttijärvi, co-founder of the group Angelin tytöt (Angelit) and a solo artist for more than two decades, and Áillohaš's godson, Niko Valkeapää. He says his famous relative opened Sámi music to the world -- and vice versa.
"Sámi music wasn't so well known before, and he was quite important in that role of making joik acceptable within the Sámi people themselves and also internationally. Because of Christianity, it was still considered a sin to joik in some areas," the Norway-based musician notes.
"Áillohaš kind of renewed the traditional Sámi music style to become more modern.. Nowadays you have quite many styles within Sámi music, with elements of different kind styles like hard rock, heavy and rap." Valkeapää's own five albums include influences from blues to '80s British synthpop.
That kind of mixture often brings new life to folk music that might otherwise be dismissed as boring by younger generations -- and be at risk of dying out altogether.
Learning from the masters
Meanwhile other young musicians are seeking out disappearing, little-known forms of music, and bringing them into the spotlight.
The festival's biggest international name is English newcomer Sam Lee. He has earned rave reviews for his 2012 debut album Ground of its Own, which was nominated for the Mercury Prize. It celebrates songs of Roma and Traveller people in Scotland, England and Ireland, which he learnt from old masters such as Stanley Robertson.
Lee sees a paradox in multicultural London, where he has hosted club events and worked as a DJ, radio and TV journalist.
"There's an interesting situation where the music of the émigrés or exiled artists is really strong and well supported by the cultural scene and the authorities, and there are many opportunities for them to be celebrated. London and Britain love the foreign and exotic," he says.
"Yet I'm encountering a kind of rather strange take on that where the music of Romany Gipsy and Traveller community, which is some ways indigenous to Britain, has never been acknowledged. But the work that I do is starting to help accept that as part of the British musical local culture."
Émigrés earn respect
Lee's Saturday-evening show at the Savoy is followed by a free club show in Hakaniemi. It marks the release of the debut album by keyboardist Juha Kujanpää, who mixes folk with jazz and progressive rock.
On Sunday, there's Latin American dance instruction in Tikkurila, followed by a concert featuring Brazilian chanteuse Sandra Melo, now a resident of Finland.
Such musicians working abroad must sometimes overcome a credibility gap, says the festival's artistic director, Jaana-Maria Jukkara.
“When we speak about the music of other cultures, professionals who live and work in Finland – for example the numerous professional Senegalese musicians – the questions out there on the international music market are: ‘Well, are they ‘real’, are they ‘original’? ‘Can they really be any good?’," she says.
“If they lived and worked in France, this would not be a question due to historical reasons. It’s quite usual that artists from the Francophone countries are based in Paris or elsewhere in the country – and at least their management is.”
Some of those Senegalese musicians, including Pape Sarr, appear during Sunday afternoon's free kids' event in Malmi. Also performing is Tanzania's Arnold Chiwalala, who has earned a doctoral degree in the ancient Finnish stringed instrument, the kantele - redefining what it means to be a 'world music' artist.
View a television report on the subject here.
