Imagining the peasant at the piano: folk music aesthetics as an expansion of pianistic expression The piano has not traditionally been considered a folk instrument, and its broader use in folk music contexts emerged only in the early 1990s alongside the development of folk music education. This article examines the artistic process behind a 2023 concert performed with a violinist specialised in Finnish pelimanni music. Employing practice-based and artistic research methods, I explore how the stylistic and aesthetic qualities of pelimanni violin playing can be applied to piano expression. Through my artistic work, I developed practical techniques for translating traditional violin features into piano expression, revealing that such adaptation extends beyond technical solutions to a holistic approach to folk music aesthetics. The study offers insights for pianists engaging with folk music, and opens perspectives on aurally based music-making practices in contemporary musical expression.

This article is based on the four-year project Conservatory Cultures, and was written by all five researchers in the project, based in four different European countries. The aim of the article is to review higher music education (HME) institutions’ actions in handling power and taking responsibility regarding issues of bullying and harassment in Estonia, Finland, and Hungary. All of the institutions discussed in the article had procedures and organisational bodies for handling such cases. The article presents and analyses four cases with experiences of incidents related to bullying and harassment and macro structures aimed at preventing such issues. The research questions asked are: What are the challenges for HME in becoming a genuinely supportive and safe environment? And how can these challenges be met? The article is based on a collaborative feminist method where the authors investigated their own experiences. Previous studies of bullying and harassment in music education, and Ahmed’s (2021) work on complaint, are the theoretical starting points. It concludes with providing recommendations to HME institutions on how to develop their work in handling bullying and harassment.

In his book Music, Ideas, History: Texts 1990–2022 Matti Huttunen sheds light on the world of Western art music by showing how past historiographies of music have given it form and meaning. While grounded in Dahlhaus’ principles of structural history, Huttunen also challenges such models by allowing greater interpretive multidimensionality. In future accounts of Finnish musicology, Huttunen’s writings may provide a focus for a “long 20th century” of musical historiography.

Lukijalle.