Jouhiorkesteri released their debut-CD Nikodemus in May 2008. Jouhiorkesteri – the Horse-Hair Orchestra – made a moving CD, where an old and forgotten instrument has in one leap reclaimed its position among the well-known string instruments. The CD was made by four dedicated talents: the master instrument builder Rauno Nieminen, Marianne Maans who has come of age together with the latest folk music wave, and two players from the younger generation of folk musicians Pekko Käppi, with an established solo jouhikko career, and Ilkka Heinonen who specializes in low range jouhikko.
The quartet can sound like a big string orchestra or an intimate chamber group, with the added spice of overtone flute, Jew’s harp and the human voice giving it variation and depth.
This CD was released with support from The Finnish Performing Music Promotion Centre (ESEK) and The Foundation for the Promotion of Finnish Music (LUSES).
The lyre was played with a bow as early as in the European Middle Ages. In the area around the Baltic Sea, we find evidence of both bowed and plucked lyres. In Estonia and Eastern Finland, the bowed lyre – jouhikko – remained in use until the beginning of the 20th century. Then, towards the end of the 20th century, the jouhikko tradition experienced a revival. Jouhiorkesteri – the Horse-Hair Orchestra – was founded in the beginning of the third millennium and the members span three generations of players. Jouhiorkesteri is devoted to the drone music traditions of Northern Europe.
Discography:
Nikodemus (Kanteleen Ääniä, 2008)
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow. Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931. Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.