Winzer Krems | Concert Evening 5

The closing evening of the festival is marked by wonders. One such wonder occurred in 1983: Sisters Mari and Sari Kaasinen, along with other teenagers, founded a band in the small village of Rääkylä. Not just any band, but one that wanted to preserve the unique heritage of their home region of Karelia, its songs, and thus its culture and history. A dozen or so young people sang and played together casually. In 1991, their first album "Oi Dai" was released and caused a sensation. In Finland, Värttinä – the name means "spindle" – literally became pop stars, complete with hits on the charts.

The rest is, as they say, music history. Tours in the USA and Europe; music for the musical "Lord of the Rings"; an opera and ballet production of the Finnish national epic Kalevala. Staying true to traditional music while simultaneously bringing it into the present was and is Värttinä's mission – singer Karoliina Kantelinen is not without reason a renowned music ethnologist. After a several-year hiatus, the band released the album "Kyly" in 2025 – and promptly reclaimed the number one spot on various World Music charts. The audience loves Värttinä as much as ever: as a warm-hearted and captivating band, just like at their first performance at Glatt&Verkehrt 26 years ago.

A seemingly endless – and terribly bumpy – road stretches between the hills in northeastern Romania, near the border with Moldova. There, where the road ends, lies the village of Zece Prâjini. This was the path taken 30 years ago by music lover and sound engineer Henry Ernst. He didn't associate much with brass music: bleak Sundays in the East German small town where he grew up. But there, in the farthest corner, he had been told during a trip through Romania that there was this very special chapel...

Here too, the rest is music history.