Revisiting one of the most fascinating interviews I’ve ever conducted for The Sound Cafe, I’m transported back to November of 2023, and the warm ambiance of The Madison, one of Toronto’s oldest pubs and a historic meeting place at the heart of the city’s cultural life. It was here, in this iconic venue, that I had the privilege of sitting down with Mari Kalkun — a remarkable multi-instrumentalist and one of Estonia's most celebrated folk musicians.
Fresh from the release of her latest album, Stories of Stonia, under Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records, Mari shared stories that mirrored her music — rooted in the icy landscapes and winter forests of the Baltic but infused with hope, renewal, and joy. Her work carries a timeless quality, a rare gift of creating music that feels both ancient and immediate, connecting listeners across generations and continents.
With eight albums to her name, Mari has captivated audiences from Europe to Japan, where she enjoys a particularly loyal fan base. Whether collaborating with orchestras, composing for theater and film, or performing solo, her music reflects a deep reverence for her cultural heritage while charting bold new creative directions.
As we spoke in the cozy setting of The Madison, steeped in its own rich history, we explored Mari’s creative process, her inspirations, and the journey that brought her music to life. The interview, one of my personal highlights, offers a window into the mind and soul of an artist who transforms tradition into timeless art.
Now, for the first time, published in three languages, edited excerpts from our conversation follow below.
Photo Credit Anne Connor.
Stevie Connor with Mari Kalkun at The Madison, Toronto, Canada.
Stevie Connor
It's a great pleasure to chat with you, thank you for your time. You were very young when you started playing music, did you start out with classical music to begin with?
Mari Kalkun
Actually I did start learning classical piano in the children's music school, true. I went to music school before I went to school, so I was at the age of five when I started kind of my first try outs on the piano, and I think immediately somehow was interested in creating music as such, because I started immediately making my own songs and compositions, and I recorded them on this tape dicta-phone, and I would listen back later and then did some new ones. So that was kind of my first studies for me for music.
Stevie Connor
Was there music in your family then?
Mari Kalkun
None of my family were professional musicians, but I think the music has run in the family, if I start to think about it, many of my cousins and nephews are trained nowadays in music, my cousin is an ethnomusicologist, another cousin is a classical flautist, I think singing has always been there for probably many generations. My grandmother was known for always humming, singing and I’m exactly like that as well.
Stevie Connor
Your compositions seem to be based very much in your roots, ancestors and folklore, is that where you draw your inspiration from?
Mari Kalkun
Yeah, definitely, folklore and the Runo song tradition are a great inspiration for me, and with this latest album also, these kind of mythical songs and stories going back to a very old layer of tradition like creating the world and the great oak, which really if you think about it are from a tradition that is 4000 years old, I wondered if they would relate to the present.
Stevie Connor
Runo songs are based on poetry, is it both poetry and oral stories?
Mari Kalkun
Runo singing is an ancient type of poetry, it's a poetic system of composing songs and lyrics that has been used throughout thousands of years already, so that has really opened the world for digging deep into what is there in Estonian tradition, but I'm mostly interested for this kind of area where these old stories meet the very present day, so with the album "Stories Of Stonia" I was especially researching through music, whether and how these old stories can relate to nowadays, to the very contemporary problems for example like oil consumption, longing for possessions, speeding up everything in the world, and global warming, and all of this that we're experiencing, like climate change. I was really surprised to find out that actually they can still speak about these issues we are facing today, really fascinating. When I started this process I was not sure about that.
Stevie Connor
That's fascinating! You are from the south east of Estonia, you speak a different dialect to the rest of the country is that correct?
Mari Kalkun
Yes, Võro, it's an ancient language, nowadays it's also one of the threatened languages in the sense that the number of speakers is constantly going down, the language really itself is an indigenous language of the region which has been spoken for at least 2000 years, and originating from the Finno-Ugric language branch.
Stevie Connor
So you're actually carrying on a tradition that dates back for thousands of years, and bringing it up to date and into the future with your music and stories?
Mari Kalkun
Really, that's what I'm also most interested in, because I feel that my task as a musician is to speak to my audience here and now, it's not only copying the songs from the past, but I always like to add a lot from my side, and also I feel that music is like a very personal thing for me, so yeah, many of these stories are universal, but still I try to make {them} my own. For the albums I’m always using contemporary poetry alongside the archive materials and also write new texts on my own, both in the Võro and Estonian languages.
Stevie Connor
I want to ask you about the instruments you play, the piano and am I right in saying the name of the stringed instrument is a Zither? Can you explain how that works
Mari Kalkun
Kannel is an ancient instrument, you can tell I like old things a lot (laughs) so it's traditional also about 2000 years old presumably, and is being played now, sharing similarities, like sisters and brothers in Finland and Kuokles, Kanles from the Baltics, the instruments are all related to each other, but for this type of instrument, it's made out of 1 piece of wood and it has 5 to 12 strings.
Stevie Connor
Did you have to get somebody to teach you how to play that instrument?
Mari Kalkun
I started up teaching myself, just discovering that I like the sound of the instrument. When I discovered the instrument, I was already a grown up, I went to study and I started to experiment with different instruments and the sound of Kannel really fascinated me, and then later on I also started immediately to compose my own songs, using the instrument, I started making my own music, not playing the traditional music, but really just using it as a tool of composition basically, experimenting, and then of course later on when I went to study music for my master's, I also had some teacher's as well.
Stevie Connor
We touched on the language, is there somewhere around 1 million speakers of Estonian?
Mari Kalkun Yes, something like a million people or less than a million people that speak the Estonian language, then my home region language ( Võro) there are around 70,000, but probably less than that, 50,000, but again, with the small languages it's really a fight {to keep them alive}, you know that the media and YouTube in general is in English, so the children learn very easily, and it's a global network, so it's difficult, but yeah, we try to do our best.
Stevie Connor
You have been to Canada before, you were playing in Montreal last night, and are playing this evening in Toronto at an Eastern European Festival, are you looking forward to that?
Mari Kalkun
Sure, I enjoyed playing in Montreal for Mundial Montreal Showcase Festival and my debut in Canada was in May, earlier this year, so I'm already back for the second time, so that's really lovely, and the Block Festival tonight, the initiators are a strong Ukrainian community behind it, the guys from Balaclava Blues, who are good friends, we occasionally meet at festivals and keep in touch, and follow each other, they live here in Toronto, I think it's going to be a great night, because really, there's a lot of interesting and strong music coming out from the area.
Stevie Connor
I've heard a rumour that you are big in Japan?
Mari Kalkun
(Laughs) yeah, big in Japan... Oh that's a long story actually, I already went to Japan very early in the beginning of my career, It was a kind of coincidence, I played shows there with my good friend and then my music was discovered by a Japanese record label, and later on they wrote to me that they wanted to release it, so I started going to Japan every year, or after every two years, so nowadays I really have this special connection with this country somehow, and I have been there more than seven times, going back and forth, and making music and also recordings, and now I'm bringing some Japanese artists to Estonia, so it's like a cultural exchange as well. Spotify statistics say that after Estonia, Japan comes next as my listener fan base, yes!
Stevie Connor
In Estonia, are there different cultures in different parts of the country?
Mari Kalkun That's what's so nice about Estonia, that although it's such a small country, we have a bit different culture in every corner, you can see authentic life and farming, fishing, stunning forests, curvy roads, or if you go to the islands, which are really beautiful by nature, and, yes of course, my home region of Võrumaa has been the greatest inspiration to me, because I have grown up there, and that's where my roots are, I draw a lot of inspiration from nature, but also from the people, they are really kind people. There is a special thing, smoke sauna tradition, that is nowadays under UNESCO protection as well, you see, progress is not always a good thing, it can be also that people move to cities and they get more distant with nature, so more people of Võrumaa are living more of a community lifestyle, so the families still are living close together to each other in this one area, and they're growing their own crops. Some families, including my own, have lived here for hundreds of years. Although Estonians like to travel, we also value highly our roots and home-places.
Stevie Connor
I want to ask you about your latest album, Stoonia Lood (Stories of Estonia), you released your first album I think in 2007?
Mari Kalkun (Laughs) Yes, your are very well informed (laughs)
Stevie Connor
I think you've released 8 albums, does each one tell a specific story, is that how you are progressing?
Mari Kalkun
Yeah definitely, each album is different, for me how I work to make an album, I have to have first a vision, an idea or concept, so for this album, "Stories of Stonia" the starting point was myth and the mythical stories, but, I have dedicated some albums to my grandparents for example, or one album is about traveling and being on the road, about roots and some things, so yeah, each album is its own concept and of course it reflects my personal being of where I am at the moment in my Life.
Stevie Connor
The way that you record, there's a lot of layers on the recording, so even though from an English speaking point of view, you don't understand the words, you get a sense of the atmosphere from the different layers, how do you manage to do that?
Mari Kalkun
Yeah, with the latest album there are layers creating a bit bigger soundscapes, this was really the core of this production for the album together with my sound engineer, Martin Kikas and co-producer Sam Lee, who is a well known British folk musician.
Stevie Connor
This album is released on Peter Gabriels record label?
Mari Kalkun Yes this one was released on Real World Records, exactly. A lot of the work was actually done in the studio and just building the soundscapes, the improvisation played a big role as well, but yeah, for me always this atmospheric thing has been really important, but the biggest change maybe is that with previous albums, they have been more sparse and minimalistic, but this one is maybe a bit more filled out.
Stevie Connor
I've listened to Stoonia Lood quite a bit over the last week or so, and in some places the music reminds me a little of the peoples from the north of Canada, from the province of Nunavut, who incorporate throat singing and big soundscapes into their music, which makes it very atmospheric, that seems to be what you have going on in your mind for this recording, it's very atmospheric.
Mari Kalkun
Yes, definitely, there is a kind of longing for music to flow like nature flows, so that's also maybe why the songs do not always have a specific ABA formula, rather they are just starting from somewhere and ending somewhere, and then just continue again and kinda come slowly. Nature is my greatest inspiration.
Stevie Connor
Just amazing, I have to ask you about your hobby, you love to cross country ski ?
Mari Kalkun
(Laughing loudly)... yes, of course, I am from south Estonia, (laughs)
Stevie Connor
It's a passion of yours, is it?
Mari Kalkun
Yeah, I mean, I'm not a sporty type of person, so I don't do it for sport, but rather it's one of the most beautiful ways to to be in nature, because you can go to places where you normally cannot go because it's frozen and there are just snow fields and lakes, you can ski across them, of course we have also wonderful skiing tracks as well in the region, and whereas in other parts of Estonia if it's not snowy, then you can be quite sure that in my home region we still have snow, because it's kind of the Alps area of Estonia (laughs).
Stevie Connor
It must give you inspiration for your music as well?
Mari Kalkun
Yeah, definitely, I don't know if you saw the video for Tõistmuudu (Otherwise), that's actually recorded on one of the lakes around my home, it happened to be during a snow storm when we filmed it, it's real nature, it was very pleasant the wind and snow (laughs), we skied the piano into the middle of the lake, we put big mountain ski's below the piano, the ice was very thick, but we had to get the piano there somehow, and I know it's a bit crazy, we ended up with the piano on ski's and then four guys were just pushing, pushing and dragging the piano across the lake, and we recorded the video in a snow storm. You can imagine it was not exactly an easy task. But in order to make art, sacrifices need to be made!
Stevie Connor
That's seems like a perfect way to finish this interview, and we'll encourage the readers to check out the video at the bottom of this article, knowing the story of how the video was made. Mari, It's been a pleasure talking to you, thank you for your time.
Mari Kalkun
Thank you very much.
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Stevie Connor, a Scottish-born polymath of the music scene, is renowned for his versatility across various domains within the industry. Initially destined for football, Stevie's heart found its true calling in music. His multifaceted journey has seen him excel as a musician, composer, recording artist, journalist, and internet radio pioneer.
In 2012, Stevie laid the foundation for Blues and Roots Radio, an online platform that quickly became a global stage for blues, roots, folk, Americana, and Celtic music. His visionary leadership propelled the platform to international acclaim. Not content with just one venture, Stevie expanded his influence in 2020 by founding The Sound Cafe Magazine, a multilingual platform dedicated to artist interviews, album reviews, and music news.
Stevie's impact extends beyond these platforms. His discerning ear and industry acumen have presented opportunities to be selected as a juror for national awards such as the JUNO Awards, the Canadian Folk Music Awards, and the Maple Blues Awards. Through his tireless efforts, he has earned a solid reputation within the music community, garnering respect from peers and artists alike.
Despite his extensive responsibilities, Stevie remains deeply connected to his roots, both musically and geographically. He continues to contribute to the vibrant tapestry of the music world, ensuring his influence resonates far beyond any single platform. Stevie's enduring passion and commitment to music make him a true luminary in the industry.
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