Finnish
Improvisation
Iki-Turso
Mordovia
Seto
Ingria
Karelia
News
The Ingrian singing tradition has been an important part of the MeNaiset repertoire ever since the ensemble was established. Indeed, the MeNaiset singers started to sing together because they were so greatly inspired by the Ingrian songs. Ingria is situated between the Narva River and Lake Ladoga, in the administrative district of St. Petersburg. The Ingrian singing tradition has been influenced by the Izhors - which are part of indigenous Ingrians - music and by the music of the Finns who were settled in the area in 17th century as well as by the polyphonic Slavic singing tradition.
In Ingria, the Kalevala rune singing lived longer than in Finland. Runes were collected and recorded from the area from the mid 19th century till 1930īs, during which time rune tradition had long been extinct in Finland. The traditional Ingrian rune singing has mostly been group singing. The lyric songs tell about girls having fun together, the hardships of a womanīs life and about yearning for the dead mother - to name just a few subjects. The versatile melodies, the emotionally rich runes and the strong sound created by chest voice used to take and still take the MeNaiset singers into another dimension. MeNaiset have learned Ingrian songs from archive tapes and written documents. The ensemble has also sung ring dance songs which are more recent Ingrian tradition where the lyrics have rhymes. In summer 2000 MeNaiset travelled around Ingria and participated in a local Midsummer feast, which all deeply helped the singers to understand the state of current culture in Ingria.
