01	Maassa marjani makaavi (In the earth lies my beloved)						04:16
	02	Miksi ne neijot (Why do the maidens)						03:52
	03	Riiustelu - Irggastallan (Courting)						01:29
	04	Sydametsani rakastan (I love you from my heart)						06:01
	05	Polska efter Hultklappen (Polska played by Hultklappen)						02:40
	06	Heilani (My sweetheart)						02:46
	07	Flinkt ovanpa (Quickly on top)						01:38
	08	Joki (The river)						02:40
	09	Voi ruusuuni/Tziganaiset (Oh my beloved/Tziganaiset)						04:12
	10	Polska efter Blinda-Pelle (Polska played by Blinda-Pelle)						03:50
	11	Kalevi Leinonen Himangalta, iltaa (Mr. Leinonen from Himanka, good evening)						02:36
	12	Kun mun kultani tulisi (I wish my beloved would arrive)						04:05
	13	Pyykkipokat (Washing the laundry - polkas)						02:32
	14	Poloinen poika (Poor boy)						05:01
	15	Virtaa (The flow)						03:38

TALLARI
Tallari is a proffessional folk music ensemble from Kaustinen. The permanent members of the group for 15 years have been Antti Hosioja (accordions, double bass), Risto Hotakainen (fiddle, mandolin, bowed lyre, nyckelharpa), Ritva Talvitie ( fiddle, vocals, 2-row accordion, bowed lyre) and Timo Vlo (harmonium).
During the years Tallari has had many solo singers, who still belong to the top of Finnish folk music artists. During the Kalaka-festival Tallari's singer is Ms Anita Lehtola, who has been working with Tallari for many years in the 1990's.

Tallari emphasizes is knowledge of styles and traditions which form the basis of the group's versatile activities. During fifteen years Tallari has performed in 17 countries with more than 1400 concerts. Tallari has recorded 8 albums of its own, and are featuring on 9 other recordings and videos.


15 years of Tallari - the story so far

Earning one's living and supporting members of the family by playing folk music - that's nowadays not more unusual. But the fact of getting each month a fixed salary for playing such kind of music - that's rare. The finnish folk-ensemble "Tallari" is such an exception. Tallari took the name of violonist Elias Tallari who lived between 1853 and 1911. The group works at the institute of traditional music (Kansanmusiiki-Instituutti) in Kaustinen.

"We feel like free birds in the sky" says Tallaris' Antti Hosioja. "There's no one who tells us what we have to do". When they are not on tour or teaching music, the four musicians meet every day in their office or practise their instruments in the new "Folk-Arts-Center". "Not rarely the phone rings because someone needs music for a birthday party or a marriage or a group of visitors of the "Folk-Arts-Center" wants a sample of our music. Within twenty minutes we are ready to play".

It was in 1968 when the first international folk music festival took place in Kaustinen - a village of 3000 inhabitants, located in the central north-west of Finland. In those days, the organisers expected 5000 visitors - but actually 15000 had been there. That was the beginning of the successful story of Kaustinen as a cultural centre. It was in 1950 when Finland finished its payments for reparations to the Soviet Union and afterwards the government decided to use the available money for cultural purposes. Since then, the most of the finnish cities maintain their own "City-Orchestras" - about twenty in a sparsely populated country situated in the north-east border of Europe. All financed by the ministry of education and culture.
Why shouldn't Kaustinen - as a centre for traditional music - take the initiative to build its own orchestra?
It took many years until Kaustinen finally had its own ensemble which became not a whole orchestra - but in the end in 1986 there were four musicians - Ritva Talvitie, Antti Hosioja, Timo Valo and Risto Hotakainen. Only one of them, the accordion player Timo Valo, grew up in Kaustinen. Not far away from there - in Halsua - is the home of Risto Hotakainen (violin, mandolin, jouhikou, kantele, vocals). Before becoming a professional musician he worked as farmer like his father - violonist Otto Hotakainen who was the first one getting an award for masterly performance together with the legendary Konsta Jyhlha in 1971. Ritva Talvitie (violin, diatonic accordion, vocals) and Antti Hosioja (diatonic accordion, guitar, double bass) live at Finland's west coast situated south of Kaustinen. Before playing with the Tallari-Ensemble, Ritva worked with the finnish National Opera. Antti grew up in a village with a background of traditional music.
Traditional music as a subject is regularly teached by Tallari in the conservatory of the coastal town of Kokkola or during nationwide workshops.
Tallari`s main job consists of performing concerts and producing recordings for finnish broadcasting stations. Meanwhile about more than 350 publications. Familiar with all parts of finnish traditional music, the group's first highlight -the CD "Lunastettava Neito" - appeared in the year 1990 and was a result of a cultural happening of finno-ugrian populations. This production contains a melody of the related hungarian culture, which Liisa got to know of Marta Sebestyen. Another musical tradition is a "joik" from the musician Wimme Saari who belongs to the Sami population of Scandinavia. This is a special feature from a music that seems to be a bit like "red indian music" and which has its origin in the native people of Scandinavia. Wimme taught traditional music at the Sibelius-Academy in Helsinki for many years and it was him, who showed Liisa Matveinen among others the art of singing the joik.
In 1992, Timo Valo composed a folk opera which had the subject-matter of the history of the Kuoaikoski-Family from Kaustinen - well-known in the whole country for being the best church builders.

Prices or awards for the Tallari-Ensemble? - Not one, because
you can't get a price if you are part of the jury. As a "consolation", Tallari played during the handing-over of the EU-Presidency to Finland in the year 2000 in Brussels. Beside Finland it was Germany where many of their concerts took place. A major performance followed at the international "Kalaka-Festival" in 2001 in Hungary.

This album is dedicated to Tallari's 15th Birthday. Tallari has released eight albums and we selected tracks from the album "Lunastettaava Neito" (1990, Track 1 - 4), "Kymmenen pennin ryypy" (1991, Track 5 - 9) and "Virtaa" (1999, Track 10 - 15) and we hope you enjoy the music as we do.

Bremen and Lubeck Jens P. Muller / Translation Wolfgang Tiller