Imagine watching crowds of young people rock out to traditional Baltic folk music. That’s exactly what I got to witness in Estonia, which is experiencing a folk music revival as young people connect with their heritage. I saw venues packed with 20- and 30-somethings come alive with the melodic sounds of ancient folk tunes during Tallinn Music Week, a festival that turns the capital city into a lively buffet of sound every year.
As a journalist who spent the final pre-pandemic year of 2019 covering music and culture – from folk instruments of the Azores islands of Portugal to the dark rock of northern Poland – I was always on the lookout for fresh global music. But then the world shut down, and I spent the next three years mostly listening to music in my car with the volume cranked up.
In 2023, when music festivals resumed in full force, I was drawn to Estonia’s capital city of Tallinn, a place I’d briefly visited before the pandemic via a ferry ride from Helsinki, Finland. But this time, instead of rushing through the city, I got to spend five full days immersed in the Estonian music scene rich with everything from rap to punk rock to “folktronica” (think folk + electronic) sung in the local language. I immediately gravitated towards the folk-meets-contemporary sounds reverberating in venues throughout Tallinn’s industrial warehouse district.
“It's beautiful to see how the young generation of artists is very respectful towards the roots, but really brave also making it their own,” said Helen Sildna, Founder of Tallinn Music Week. Here are some of the bands I met:
Trad.Attack!
Trad.Attack! blends voices from a century ago with modern rock and pop. I interviewed the three charismatic bandmates – couple Sandra Vabarna (vocals, bagpipes) and Jalmar Vabarna (guitar, vocals), along with drummer Tõnu Tubli (aka Tony) – backstage before their show.
Lead guitarist Jalmar Vabarna sourced tape from a treasure trove of his great-grandmother Anne’s archived recordings. She was a traditional village singer who now has more than 150,000 verses written down in Estonia’s national folk music library.
“She was one of the biggest, we call them singing mothers,” Vabarna said, “and you can hear her singing with us on our new album.” Interesting fact: she was a midwife who used to sing to women. “The songs were very, very long because of the improvisation,” Vabarna added.
The band mixed those archived recordings with guitars, bagpipes, and drums. The final effect is a rock concert with strobe lights that brings old folk tunes back to life in packed venues.
“I always said that my great-grandmother was a lot more famous than I am. She sang for the Finnish President,” he said. Now, her voice can be heard on their latest album, Bring it On.
Sandra Vabarna began playing bagpipes in her teen years and says now more young women in Estonia have taken on the instrument. “If you have a role model, that's something that keeps the spark going on,” she says.
Her husband Jalmar Vabarna says, “Can bagpipe be cool? Yes, it can. Whatever you do, you just have to find a perspective you put something in.”
But, this is not your grandpa’s bagpipe. While the band draws upon folk tunes, they take the instrument to a whole new level – it’s loud, powerful, danceable, and electric.
Ehale
The band’s name Ehale comes from the Estonian feminine first name “Eha,” which means dusk or twilight. I caught up with the group backstage after their concert at Tallinn’s Club of Different Rooms. Ehale’s members play fiddles, guitar, and clarinet, and the band formed in early 2022, making their national debut at Estonia’s Viljandi Folk Festival that year. All of them were former students in Ethno Estonia, a youth music camp where participants learn traditional music by ear.
They talked excitedly about bringing their folk music to the stage. “You're playing the music of your ancestors, you're keeping the spirit alive,” says band member Mathias Lantin, adding, “There's definitely this sense of community that you feel when playing all these lovely tunes together during a jam session or anything like that.”
The members of Ehale have researched music in the Estonian traditional song archives (the high-tech nation of Estonia has done wonders digitizing its historical folk recordings), and they also compose original songs.
“It’s all in the public domain, so we can take inspiration from and learn tunes, create our own songs or ideas around them, and then have a lot of fun,” Lantin says.
Leik
This band is a duo – Kelly Veinberg and Elina Kasesalu – who sing and play violin and viola. Their simple, yet evocative, melodies transport listeners to a time and place far away from the modern city. They draw from the ancient Estonian tradition of runo, which features eight-syllable verse lines that alternate between long and short syllables.
The members of Leik met while studying at the Viljandi Culture Academy, Estonia’s prestigious music school helping popularize folk music. As a musical duo, they combine old folk songs with their own music.
They tell me the main song, “Las mind kasva,” on their album of the same name means “let me grow,” which is intended to uplift women to take up space and assert confidence. The duo says the lyrics of the song mean, “Look at me, I am shining, and I am growing into something very beautiful.”
6hunesseq
The all-women quartet 6hunesseq sings folk hymns in the traditional Baltic-Finnish style known as runo. They create melodic harmonies through their voices and instruments, filling the room with beautiful, ethereal sounds that transport the listener to a world of calmness. The group’s name 6hunesseq comes from the word for “humidity” in the South Estonian language of Võro.
Greta Liisa Grünberg sings and plays a horsehair harp instrument called hiiu kannel. “It was just a yearning for connecting with my culture, with my past, just connecting with my roots,” she says. “And I've always searched for something with a deeper meaning. So, I felt folk music is the way to go.”
The layered music of 6hunesseq uplifts and soothes at the same time. In the song “küläkene väikokõnõ,” the women blend their voices into a richly textured melody as they sing folk verses accompanied by traditional instruments and organ music. The song turns into a lively, yet contemplative piece featuring beautiful voices that slowly build into a crescendo with the strings, and then soften into a quiet hymn.
