Bowed harp and traditional fiddle playing in Estonia. Krista and Raivo Sildoja

Estonia

Working language is Estonian.

In the format of a lecture-concert Krista and Raivo will convey their relationship to bowed harp as a rediscovered folk instrument. They introduce more well-known fiddle players from different Estonian villages at the beginning of the 20th century and explain what our contemporary fiddle players have to learn from their predecessors. A bowed harp master Raivo Sildoja talks about the joys and worries of making bowed harps and of its constructional peculiarities. Krista Sildoja who works at Estonian Literary Museum as a traditional fiddle music researcher tries to help restore what 20th century Estonian cultural life was like, about the bowed harp players and village fiddlers of the time. The collected memories of August Pulst have been of great help in this. The purpose of the workshop is to reach out to the feeling of the ties between history and contemporary life.