Welcome to the Nordic Harp Meeting 2015, 15-18 October in Turku, Finland!

The programme will contain workshops both on beginner and advanced level, as well as dancing, ballad singing, storytelling, evening concerts etc.

Among the workshop teachers will be:

Anna-Maria Toivonen: Rune singing, the traditional way to sing ancient Finnish poetry
Arja Kastinen: Small kantele improvisation connected to the runosong tradition
Eeva-Kaisa Kohonen: kantele + harp ensemble
Henrik “Hummel” & Monica Schön: Swedish medieval ballads
Katja Nyuppieva: South Karelian (Livvi) folk music
Maria Ojantakanen: Danish ballads and the viking-age lyre
Pekko Käppi: Jouhikko
Tulikoira: Western Finnish songs and ballads
Vincent Michaud: Gaelic harp and Scottish dances
Wendy van der Meijs: Harp for beginners
Yrjänä Ermala and Eetu Klementti: Instrument making

The venue will be the LUMO centre (click for details), in an old-style farmhouse right in the middle of Turku City. Easy access by ferry or airplane, good bus connections. Friendly home-spun atomsphere and lots of learning, playing and jamming. Workshops of making simple folk instruments are being planned as well. Some instruments will be available for loan during the event.

Registration is still open (proceed to the three steps of registration)

The participation fee is 90 EUR for the weekend, meals included. There are two alternatives of hostel accomodation, one of them within walking distance. Some free, very uncomfortable accomodation can be arranged if need be…

The organising committee for 2015 consists of Helka “Harpbreaker” Ermala, Antti “Hairyface” Saarinen and Yrjänä “Pegleg” Ermala. If you have any questions, email to:

Stay tuned!

The next Nordic Harp Meeting will happen in Turku (Finland) from 15 – 18 October 2015. The venue will be announced here some day in the near future.

Some planned highlights which you already can look forward to:

• Music on harp, kantele, lyre, jouhikko, langeleik, hummel and other “strange” musical instruments of the Nordic countries.
• Dancing to music played on the instruments mentioned above
• Concerts with musicians from all Nordic countries.
• Storytelling: The participants will tell mythical stories from the Nordic countries, or elsewhere, not necessarily their own country, hopefully with music included.
• Ballad singing
• Exhibition of drawings of potential musical instruments that were found in archeological excavations in Finland and are stored in museum depositories since the archeologists had no idea what these artefacts could be…

This list is preliminary and subject to change. We reserve the right to make changes in the planned programme until the final version is printed.

The organising committee for 2015 are: Helka “Harpbreaker” Ermala, Antti “Hairyface” Saarinen and Yrjänä “Pegleg” Ermala. If you have any questions, email to:

Stay tuned!