Productive Day!

Side note: I saw the cherry blossoms at the tidal basin this week!  Tuesday I took public transit to school and headed down on my way home.  It was breathtaking.  I'm so lucky to live in DC.  What an amazing city.

Today, I drank coffee and finally finished edits on the article based on my master's thesis project.  It's entitled The Influence of the Kalevala on Contemporary Finnish Choral Music.  I absolutely loved the process of researching and writing my thesis back in 2011.  Briefly, the Kalevala is a 22,000-line epic folk poem published in the early nineteenth century.  It's a written transcription of ancient runic texts and melodies collected from Finns in the countryside.  Finland needed something to unify its Finnish speaking populace as nearly seven centuries of Swedish and then Russian rule had nearly obliterated authentic Finnish language and culture.  Several modern composers (as well as Jean Sibelius, Finland's most famous and well-known composer) have drawn on runic singing/poetry traditions in their modern compositions.  The thesis (now article) explores works by Pekka Kostiainen, Jean Sibelius, Juha Hilander, and Einojuhani Rautavaara.  This morning I submitted the article to the Choral Journal.  I very much hope it gets picked up for publication.  

Now onto find new topics for research and writing!!

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