News
Actor introduces “mouth plane”
05.01.2011
Estonian Traditional Music Center and Viljandi senior citizens organisations invite everyone to attend the next daily-concert meeting on Thursday January 13 at the Traditional Music Center. The guest is the actor and devoted harmonica player Felix Kark.
In 1821, German instrument maker Friedrich Buschmann who had just turned 16 made an instrument the structure and the principle for creating sound of which form the basis of the contemporary harmonica. The harmonica is nowadays one of the most widely produced musical instruments in the world and has, due to that, acquired a number of nicknames. For example, in Bavaria they call it "Fotzenhobel" which means "mouth plane" (like the tool).
Even though Felix Kark has been working at Pärnu Endla theatre since 1986, he has put a lot of effort into developing the harmonica club Piccolo together with which he has been organising an international harmonica festival which is becoming ever more popular every year.
Piccolo is the first of its kind in Estonia and because of that, Felix Kark together with his friends Ilmar Tõnisson and Jüri Vaikjärv can consider themselves the fathers of Estonian harmonica culture. "I plan to play the harmonica as long as I can breathe," said Kark a few years ago. In order to practice what he preaches, he promised to take his harmonica with him when he comes to Viljandi.
In addition to talking about music, Kark will also shed light into his life and his acting carreer which started already in 1965. "To be perfectly honest, I do not consider acting as work because acting for me is, first and foremost, a creative endeavour. The person whose hobbies and work collide can be considered to be the happiest person in the world. If that does not apply to people who work in the theatre, they tend to either leave the theatre or start drinking. It is very important for actors that they don't consider their job as mere work but enjoy what they are doing and realise how you can express yourself through your work."
The host of the daily concert-meeting is the head of public relations at Estonian Traditional Music Center Rannar Raba.