Finland Stories # 4: Climate Differences
Indian Summer in The Netherlands in November 2008 when I left by airplane. Green meadows, colorful trees. When I arrived in Kuopio, Finland, it was full winter. Dark, cold, misty and a thick pack of snow. That snow kept drizzling all four days I was in Kuopio for the board meeting of the EMC, the European Music Council of which I was the chairman.
The next day I left my hotel in time to go to Room 4 in the Music Center of Kuopio. In the hall, I kicked off my snow boots, put on my city shoes and walked into Room 4 to set up my computer. To my surprise, on the floor were about 8 young women, all pregnant, sitting in a circle, holding each other’s bellies, singing a soft and cheerful melody. ‘This is not the EMC Board Meeting’ I spoke softly, ‘but it is Room 4’. ‘There is another Room 4 in another part of the building’, the one woman, not pregnant, replied. ‘This is a music lesson for the unborn child’.
The contrast between The Netherlands and Finland could not be bigger. Not only in the natural climate, but also in the cultural climate. In The Netherlands music schools were receiving less and less financial support from the governments, in Finland you have music lessons even before you are born.
Did you have music lessons in Finland before you were born? Please tell me; I have a gift for you. Do you have a Finland story yourself? Please tell me.
Contact: Wouter Turkenburg
