A Smørrebrød of Nordic Music, Re-imagined

What do you think of when someone mentions Nordic music? If you’re a hipsta, Sigur Rós and Björk come to mind. And to go old school, we think of Grieg and Sibelius, some of whose original music is so familiar that it is incorrectly remembered as traditional folk melodies.

But there’s so much more to discover this Sunday in the Pico-Union area of Los Angeles.

Keiju Kollektiv is LA’s newest vocal ensemble, and devotes itself exclusively to Nordic and Scandinavian music. The distinction, incidentally, is that the term “Nordic” embraces the outlier cultures of Finland and Iceland, while “Scandinavian” references the proverbial three crowns, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

Although Nordic culture may not immediately spring to mind as a light-hearted antidote to sorrow, Keiju Kollektiv promises to surprise in that regard. The group’s premiere performance, delayed by our region’s wildfires, has now been rescheduled for Sunday, January 26 at 2:30 PM at Angelica Lutheran Church.

singers — Although the musical origins are Nordic, the beauty and joy prove universal. Photo: T.Lei

The Kollektiv has formed an alliance with Angelica Lutheran Church to form its own Wildfire Relief Fund, allowing anyone affected by the fires to attend the concert at no charge. These gratis tickets are not guaranteed, so interested music-lovers are advised to apply immediately. All proceeds from ticket sales will be donated by the church to this fund. Additionally, donations may be made through the Keiju Kollektiv Wildfire Relief Fund.

Via Zoom, we just caught up with Keiju Kollektiv Executive Director Marja Liisa Kay and Artistic Director, Braden Pontoli, a Pasadena resident who shared that the newly formed group is now in the final steps of 501(c)3 nonprofit certification, allowing them to qualify for grants. Pontoli, who is a musician, composer, conductor, sound artist and sound-healer, says “We love the music of the northern world, but that’s only part of our mission. Now more than ever, we feel that it’s essential for artists to build outlets to support fellow artists.”

Beyond Blond

The group’s name is Finnish and Finnish-ish (sort of Finnish), the first word referencing a music-sprite familiar in Finnish culture. Nordic culture is indeed present in Los Angeles — check out “Before the Vikings: The Nordic Bronze Age” at the Scandinavian Center, Thousand Oaks — but seemingly stays discreetly under the radar.

This is perhaps due in part to the fact that natives of these five countries, particularly those of the Three Crowns, easily assimilate into mainstream Western culture. (Tall: check. Fair-skinned: check. Often blond: check. Christian: check.) However, the ensemble itself is mindfully multicultural, and the appeal of this largely undiscovered music transcends any cultural insularity.

Because of the tragic consequences requiring the rescheduling of the date, much of the program for Sunday’s “A Nordic Winterscape” has a holiday feel — fine with us, since we didn’t even have time to put away the Magi’s chipped, vintage chalkware camels before the Eaton Fire swept through within a smoky breath of our front door.

We got Grinched, robbed. So for some of us, listening to “Eit barn er født i Betlehem” (Norwegian, “A Child is Born in Bethlehem”) while the sun blazes overhead and the mercury inches well into the 70s may help ease the sting of a holiday season marred by devastation.

Pontoli comments that a primal, unbroken affinity with nature and the land defines the ethnicity of this music. Orchestral works in the Kollektiv’s repertoire in particular create soundscapes of thundering grandeur, summoning the sensation of deep fjords carved by centuries of unstoppable glaciers, the long, dark nights, the breathtaking purity of fresh snowfall untouched by human tracks, and the unreasoning power of the sea.

“Because there are only nine of us,” says Pontoli, “We use synthesizers to layer in the pristine, airy feel of the northern lights.”

“This is really soulful music,” says Kay, whose ancestry is both Finnish and Swedish. “There are heroic, Viking-inspired motifs, and also deep, minor-key melancholia. But there are also lots of rowdy, fast polkas, drinking songs, party songs.”

wild tango party — Finns love to tango. Who knew? From the annual “*Tangomarkkinat*.” Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Soile Kallio

Most puzzling, and delighting: the playlist includes the tango, that sultriest of musical forms that might seem like a fiskebolle out of water among the stoical Finns who are notable even among fellow northerners for their especially Arctic reserve.

But not so: in Seinäjoki, a small town three hours’ train ride north of Helsinki, the main street has been renamed “Tangokatu,” or Tango Street. For the past three decades in July, more than 100,000 Finns have congregated to dance, compete and, of course, drink as part of “Tangomarkkinat,” the annual event reputed to be the world’s oldest tango festival.

Tango had arrived in Finland from Buenos Aires by the 1920s, but the dark, dance floor dirges of lost love gained real traction a bit later in the context of lost land, heritage and identity as Finland weathered the Winter War following the Soviet invasion of 1939.

Award-winning Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki claims that Finnish farmers invented the tango, hoping the sound would frighten wolves away from their livestock. Kaurismäki further maintains that Finnish sailors later brought the sensual form, better-suited to arousing the ravenous wolfish spirit than deflecting it, to South America. Given this filmmaker’s taste for parody, we must presume that this is a rare instance of dry-as-a-bone Finnish humor.

Tango aficionados observe that the Finnish tango differs from the Argentine in ways that reveal much about the Nordic soul. The tempos are slower, the compositions based on the denser forms of Slavic waltzes and indigenous Finnish melodic traditions like the partner-dance called jenkka, played on accordion versus the bandoneon.

And the body language tells it all: the stolid Finns dance tango power-locked tightly together, perhaps out of habit for preserving body-heat. The showy pivots, kicks and flicks of the sinuous original style seem too frivolous here.

Kay explains that for now the family-friendly programming is rated G, but future concerts may target adult listeners and queer audiences with content themed to the homoerotic “Tom of Finland” oeuvre and the naughtier side of being Nordic.

For pure levity on Sunday, the ensemble will sing “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” in Danish.