Värttinä is a Finnish folk music band that started in 1983 by Sari and Mari Kaasinen in the village of Rääkkylä, in Karelia, the southeastern region of Finland. In their early days the group developed an aggressive and powerful vocal style “loud, almost shouting” which was provocative and new to Finnish folk music and which rapidly lead to national recognition, with them being named “Band of the Year” in 1987.

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In late 1989 as many members of the original group reached their late teens, several members left the group, leading to a major re-working of their sound and style – relaunching as a 10 piece with 5 front singers. While remaining fully acoustic the group shifted to a more pop/rock approach, introducing original compositions and diversifying further in Finno-Urgic territory borrowing tunes, poems, songs and ideas from local women’s singing traditions. The resulting 1991 album Oi Dai was an overnight smash hit making them a household name in Finland and attracting international attention.

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Subsequent albums and years saw the band topping World Music charts in Europe and North America with performances at top venues and festivals across the world, including UK appearances at Glastonbury, WOMAD, the Barbican and Queen Elizabeth Hall. The group also moved to a front line of just 3 female singers, including Mari Kaasinen from the original line-up, and 6 instrumentalists.

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2002 saw another “rebirth” of the group with several personnel changes and the release of their tenth album Iki, which was hailed critically as a new pinnacle in their career – achieving “Top of the World” status and featuring in the “Top 40 World Music Albums You Should Own” in Songlines magazine. Over the next couple of years the group collaborated with Indian composer A.R.Rahman on music for the stage play adaption of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings which premiered in London in May 2007.

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The band have continued to tour and record, with their 14th album Viena being released to critical acclaim in October 2015. Fiona Talkington in Songlines gave the album a 5 star review:

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The sound is superb, the playing immaculate, and the three singers are on fire. It’s also enormous fun and a huge achievement for a band that has been through so many changes: they can proudly say that the Värttinä sound is as strong as ever … Die-hard fans will be putting this right up there among their best albums; new arrivals will find it a great place to start.