The band consists of musicians from HaparandaTornio: Esa Rautiainen (acoustic guitar and song), Elina Söderström (song and percussion), Mirja Tapio (western concert flute) and Niko Mäenalanen (accordion). VisaNordicas music is beautiful and soft, even jazzy melodies in major and minor and they perform the songs in both Finnish and Swedish. Esa Rautiainen has been for many years an active songwriter and has performed many traditional Nordic ballads with Elina translated from Finnish to Swedish or vice versa. This work has also gained them the reward “Årets Nordister” (The Nordic persons of the year).
The historical stories have been a great source of inspiration for the couple and Esa has written a lot of music inspired by different stories, for example music of Mustaparta’s life. Mustaparta lived in Tornio in 1700s and has some modern day fame since he has a theme hotel and a restaurant bearing his name. The songs written of Mustaparta have been recorded and performed in a Mustaparta musical.
For the concert VisaNordica has chosen to present historical stories and they will take the audience for a tour to Northern Lights Route along the River Tornio. With the help of music, they will present among others the French scientist Jean Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis and the daughter of a tradesman, Christine Planström. Here is a taste of what’s coming!