Kuhmo

I have been in Finland since July 13 and am currently in Kuhmo, a small town that is about 100 km from the Russian border. I am playing in the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, which is comparable to something like the Aspen Music Festival in terms of its great artist-faculty and concert series, and how it is so revered in this little town. There are 120 concerts in two weeks, 120 music students, and a full faculty of maybe 50-60 world class musicians from around the world, so you can see how much organization this festival requires. It is incredible out here - full of nature & wilderness, delicious Arctic berries, and shy but friendly Finnish people. Finnish is a strange and difficult sounding language that I cannot understand at all, but most Finns speak great English, and I have been speaking German, too, with some German musicians here. I spent from July 13-15 in Helsinki, sightseeing on my own, and then headed to Tampere, a city about 2 hours north of Helsinki (and the headquarters of Nokia) where I visited a cousin of a cousin and his wife - Amit and Payal. They were great hosts, and I felt so at home, especially with all the tasty Indian food. Food has been somewhat of an issue here. We eat at the festival cafeteria, and after many years of music festivals, I know to expect that food will probably be sub-par. However, in one instance here, I took a bite of the vegeterian entree (paella) and ended up spitting out clam. Attention to all: fish is not considered vegetarian. Therefore, if something has fish in it, or if you eat fish, the food and you both are NOT vegetarian. Needless to say, I was not happy with that experience. Masanori, my old BoCo cellist colleague, is also here, and he lives in a beautiful fully equipped apartment, so I have resorted to cooking there. It makes everyone happy because I can cook (I would hope) better than the cafeteria and so we all get to spare our stomachs. I have to go now, but perhaps I can write more later. Moi moi! (Goodbye - and actually hello, too - in Finnish)