Spirits of the Forest: Sinikka Langeland

Map It  Foggy Bottom 

FINNSKOGEN IS FILLED WITH SECRETS. The "Forrest of the Finns," in southeastern Norway, is also the birthplace of Sinikka Langeland, a singer and kantele player — the plucked-string device in the zither family that's the national instrument of Finland. And the mystical music she makes on the modern version of the kantele — all 39 strings and five octaves of it — evokes the old spirits of Finnskogen like a forest sprite called forth by a shaman.

Influenced by experimental jazz and ancient rune songs, Langeland said she developed her own style on the instrument because she grew up in Norway, away from kantele traditions. "Because I worked with these folk styles, this music is inside me," she said. "But the way I play is quite free and modern."

For her ECM label debut, the gorgeous "Starflowers," Langeland set the verse of Finnskogen "lumberjack-poet" Hans Borli (1918-89) to song in a meditative journey that focuses on the relationship between man and nature. The expressive music ebbs and flows like the Nordic Seas, stirred by a top-notch jazz band: Arve Henriksen (trumpet), Trygve Seim (saxophones), Anders Jormin (double-bass) and Markku Ounaskari (percussion).

Several of Borli's painterly poems are translated to English in the CD booklet, but Langeland said, "It's a difficult flavor to get in translation. He has this connection to this old way of thinking about nature — that it exists in everything. It's shamanism in a way, but he's more influenced by modern ways of thinking and modern philosophies. … He was working in the forest; he was living in the forest. … And he thought about how we're connected with nature — or if nature is just doing what it likes."

"Starflowers" is a spiritual affair, but unlike the cultures of continental Europe, Nordic people don't have a problem celebrating equally their pagan past and Christian present.

"We're still very close to nature, so we need to have it," Langeland said. "And I know many people here say, 'I do not go to so much to church, but on Sunday I really want to go walk in the forest. The forest is a kind of cathedral to me.' … Of course, we have our Christian culture, but we really feel like we can go outside and have church in the nature."

» Kennedy Center, Millennium Stage, 2700 F St. NW; Thu., 6 p.m., free; 202-467-4600. (Foggy Bottom-GWU)

Photos courtesy Kennedy Center/ECM Records/Sinikka Langeland