Saying Hello - Mari Kalkun

Mari Kalkun at the Nordic Travel Fair

I made several resolutions at the beginning of this year. One of them was to catch up with as many of my friends as possible and to take pictures of them all to put on my wall at home. So far this project is going well. I already have ten new photos taken with special people and I hope this Friendship Tour will continue throughout the year.

Another resolution though was to make more of an effort to talk to people that I don't already know. I took part in a radio interview with Eve Mantu last year in which we talked about the fear that many people have in talking to strangers. The fear of being rejected or ignored means that many times we pass by someone who could be a potential friend or even romantic partner just because we are too scared to say hello.

I have decided this year that I am prepared to take the risk. My whole life has changed in the last few months. I have suddenly found myself looking for a new career, a new partner and a new direction in life. And I am always interested in making new friends. So the way I see it, I have very little to lose.

This weekend I started this new project by saying hello to a lady who I heard singing just as I sat down at the Nordic Travel Fair. I have never particularly been a fan of folk music, but something about the way she sang was so captivating that I knew immediately that I would like to get to know more about her. So here she is.

Her name is Mari Kalkun, a 26 year old singer, composer and musician from Estonia, who is currently attending the Sibelius Music Academy in Helsinki on an exchange programme.

Mari has been writing songs since the age of thirteen and is currently working on her third cd. I asked what inspired her, and she told me that she was inspired by Estonian poetry and a desire to connect with her roots.

"At the moment I am writing about the beauty of the road," she said. "In the old days people used to sit on carriages and sing as they went. It is not just about arriving somewhere, it is about the journey itself. Being in the moment. To me music is all about that."

Mari has already had success with her music, having performed in France, Germany, Spain and Japan where she was spotted by a record label and asked to release her cd. The Japanese have been particularly receptive to her music, despite the two languages being so different from each other.  In the next few weeks she will be going to India and Portugal. I asked Mari what her dreams were. "To travel around with my music," she said, "to see how it can dialogue with different cultures and how I can use music to communicate with others."

There is a lot more to Mari that these few paragraphs show, but I hope you get a flavour of who she is, and agree with me that it was definitely worth saying hello. I have suggested to Mari that she comes to play for us in Somero one day and she has promised to do so. I hope some of you will come and hear her play then.  You can learn more about her at www.marikalkun.com