Sinikka Langeland

Sinikka Langeland, an acclaimed Norwegian singer, kantele specialist, and arranger, has produced numerous solo and joint recordings that trace the origins of rune songs from the Finnskogen region, an area named after Finnish immigrants who arrived there during the seventeenth century. Playing the kantele—called “harpu” by the indigenous Sami—this plucked string instrument from the dulcimer and zither traditions found across Finland and other northern European lands allows her to work effectively alone or with ensembles that may blend seemingly unrelated styles drawn from folk, avant-garde classical, and jazz. Since emerging in the mid-1990s she has maintained a prominent place on the ECM roster, issuing key albums such as Starflowers in 2007, The Half-Finished Heaven in 2015, and Wind and Sun in 2023.

Born in Norway, she trained on piano and guitar while also pursuing contemporary folk singing during her youth. She first encountered the kantele in 1981 and soon made it her central instrument. After time studying in Paris in the mid-1980s she returned home and earned a musicology degree from the University of Oslo in 1992. That qualification led to an extensive research initiative on Finnskogen songs and music that involved numerous performers, vocalists, and producers, Ove Berg among them.

Her first album, Langt Innpå Skoga, appeared in 1994 and launched a ten-year collaboration with Grappa Musikkforlag that yielded nine releases. Among them were Tirun lirun and Runoja, both deeply engaged with rune-song poetry, as well as Strengen Var Af Røde Guld and Lille Rosa, each presenting medieval songs performed by Langeland. During the same span she published the book Karhun Emuu on rune songs and received the Edvard and Norwegian-Finnish Cultural Prizes.

She joined ECM Records in 2005. Starflowers, her first album for the label, came out in 2007 and featured Arve Henriksen, Trygve Seim, Anders Jormin, and Markku Ounaskari. Maria’s Song followed in 2009, pairing traditional Finnish hymns and Bach religious pieces with kantele and viola accompaniment. Reassembling the Starflowers group produced The Land That Is Not in 2011, setting poems by Edith Södergran and Olav H. Hauge. At producer Manfred Eicher’s suggestion she altered course for The Half-Finished Heaven in 2015; all but three tracks were instrumental, with the kantele prominent alongside tenor saxophone, viola, and percussion, while the vocal selections, including the title piece, drew on poems by Sweden’s Tomas Tranströmer.

After devoting a decade exclusively to the Starflowers quintet, Langeland began a new project uniting that ensemble with the singers of Trio Mediӕval. She wrote original works and reinterpreted traditional rune songs based on surviving fragments of axis mundi, or “world tree,” myths that lie at the heart of Finnskogen lore. The Magical Forest was issued in August 2016.

Five years of research, composition, and performances across Northern Europe culminated in the solo album Wolf Rune, released on ECM in April 2021. Her next undertaking again adapted poetry, this time from acclaimed Norwegian author and poet Jon Fosse. Recruiting established ECM musicians—trumpeter Mathias Eick, saxophonist Bendik Hofseth, bassist Mats Eilertsen, and drummer Thomas Strønen—she recorded Wind and Sun in 2023.