Celebrate the Sámi National Day with Ánnámáret and Ailu Valle in Helsinki

Savoy Theatre’s Sámi National Day concert will feature the latest trends in Sámi music performed by some of today’s most interesting musicians. On stage will be rap artist Áilu Valle and Ánnámáret and her band, who combine joik, modern soundscapes and video art in a spectacular way.

Ánnámáret is a Sámi yoiker with unique yoik voice and interpretation. With her band and visual artist she has created an audiovisual world that will be heard and seen in Savoy on the Sámi National Day 6.2.2024. Entity combines Ánnámáret yoiks with the electronic music by Turkka Inkilä and Ilkka Heinonen's Carelian lyre jouhikko sound, while Marja Viitahuhta's video art is in conversation with the music.

The entity draws on both the rich Sámi yoik tradition and the living culture, nature, and everyday life of Sápmi, transporting the viewer through images and music into intensely experimental worlds. These ingredients take on a resonant and resonant form in this time, embodying and concretizing the search for roots and the revival of tradition, addressing both its positive and more challenging aspects.

In recent years, Ánnámáret has been researching her family’s joik tradition by studying old archival records. As a result of this work, she and her multiartistic team created the work Nieguid duovdagat – Dreamscapes, which combines joik, bowed lyre and electronic music with video art. The Nieguid duovdagat album brought Ánnámáret to the attention of the world music scene, and Ánnámáret and her group were selected as official Womex 2023 showcase artists.

Ánnámáret draws inspiration for her music from the nature of Sápmi and the Sámi culture and way of life. She makes music and lives in the north with her reindeer husbandry family. Ánnámáret’s strength as an artist comes from growing up between two cultures and thus understanding these cultures and the clashes and similarities between them.

Ánnámáret, joik
Ilkka Heinonen, bowed lyre
Turkka Inkilä, live electronics, shakuhachi flute
Marja Viitahuhta, video art

Áilu Valle is a rap artist from Inari who raps in North Sámi, Finnish and English. Valle’s style combines a polemical message, technology and emotion. He originates from a small reindeer village of about 20 people in Kaamasmukka, Utsjoki municipality.

Áilu Valle has released three solo albums in North Sámi, “Dušši dušše duššat” (2012), “7” (2015) and “Viidon sieiddit” (2019). Valle has been awarded, for example, the 2019 State Prize for Children’s Culture by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, and the Best Songwriter/Composer of the Year granted by Sámi Music Awards and Norway’s TONO in 2020. Valle will perform at Savoy Theatre together with a DJ.

More information: https://www.savoyteatteri.fi/en/events/event/47C206F393DF17E908836D33D3CDC776/_nn_m_ret____ilu_Valle_