Walestonia Festival Day

To celebrate the longstanding relations between Wales and Estonia a WALESTONIA FESTIVAL DAY will take place at the Norwegian Church Arts Centre in Cardiff Bay on Friday, 17 October.  A great chance to experience all things Estonian – music, dance, culture and food as part of the WALESTONIA FESTIVAL 2008.

There will be a photo exhibition by Estonian photographers Age Peterson, Birgit Püve and Annika Haas displayed in the Church Gallery upstairs and plenty to taste and learn about Estonia downstairs during the whole day between 10am and 5pm. Entrance to the Norwegian Church Arts Centre is FREE.

The highlight of the day will be an evening concert by the Estonian-Welsh duo Sild and Estonian folk trio Klapp including the official opening of the exhibition.  Martin Leamon (guitar & bouzouki) and Sille Ilves (fiddle, vocals & hiiu-kannel) formed Sild, a unique Welsh–Estonian collaboration in 2001. Since then their constantly evolving music has developed into a truly original fusion of two different musical cultures. Support comes from Klapp, a trio who are inheritors of the dance music traditions of the South East Estonian region of Setumaa.

A series of events will take place this autumn in Wales celebrating the Welsh and Estonian shared heritage of expressing national identity through the arts. To mark the 90th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia more than 30 concerts, performances, exhibitions, workshops, film screenings and other joint Welsh and Estonian projects take place in Cardiff, Penarth, Swansea, Newport, St Donat, Aberystwyth, Llanfyllin and Hay-on-Wye as part of the WALESTONIA FESTIVAL.

The Right Honourable Rhodri Morgan AM, First Minister for Wales:

"The WALESTONIA Festival brings together two small but proud countries who enjoy celebrating their distinctive national cultures and who therefore can understand each other in a way other bigger countries cannot.  We welcome the fact that Estonia chooses to mark its 90th anniversary as a republic with celebrations in Wales.  As First Minister I have had the pleasure of visiting Estonia and in welcoming a number of its senior political leaders to Wales."

Please see the festival website www.walestonia.com or the Norwegian Church Arts Centre website www.norwegianchurchcardiff.com for further information.

WALESTONIA FESTIVAL 2008 HIGHLIGHTS: The Estonian National Opera will stage a modern ballet Hamlet and the Estonian National Male Choir (RAM) will perform together with the Pontarddullais Male Choir as part of the Swansea Festival of Music and the Arts. RAM will also participate in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex performance with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in the Brangwyn Hall. The concert will be broadcast live on BBC3. The internationally renowned Gregorian chant ensemble Vox Clamantis will sing with the Catalan soprano Arianna Savall at the Vale of Glamorgan festival in September. The Estonian-Welsh traditional music duo Sild will give joint concerts and traditional dance workshops with the Estonian trio Klapp in Cardiff and Swansea Valley in October. Lochws International is working with Estonian artists Marko Mäetamm and Neeme Külm to create temporary visual arts projects for public and accessible spaces across the city of Swansea. As part of Walestonia the Llanfyllin workhouse hosted a cultural artists exchange, where five artists from Estonia worked alongside four artists from the local area creating artistic ‘interventions’ in and around the workhouse building and it’s surroundings. The Estonian Literature Information Centre and the Literature Across Frontiers are planning a joint event in Aberystwyth with two young Estonian poets Kristiina Ehin and Jürgen Rooste. The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery is working with the Estonian artist Minna Hint on an interactive project, which will be displayed in Swansea in September and October. Estonian singer-songwriter Hannah will perform at St David’s Hall in Cardiff as part of Jason Donovan’s UK tour 2008. Paintings by August Künnapu and the Temples and Towers exhibition by Vilen Künnapu will be displayed at St Donat Art Centre. Estonian animation will be shown in Newport and also during the Swansea Animation Days. Estonian filmmaker Priit Pärn will conduct several workshops. Estonian films will take part of the Ffilmic Film Festival in Llanfyllin and there will be an Estonian photo exhibition at the Norwegian Church in Cardiff.  Estonian Kinobuss (Cinemabus) will tour Wales showing Estonian and European films and organising workshops.