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Violinist Pekka Kuusisto: Folk, forests and the moomins

The Proms favourite has worked with Greenpeace and scientists and wants to change the way we think, and listen. He explains why he is now bringing Finnish rune singing to the festival

Three years ago, overnight, Pekka Kuusisto became the most talked about violinist in the UK. What everyone remembers most about his Prom debut is the Finnish folk song he played and sang as an encore: with the assurance of a standup comic, he got the Royal Albert Hall audience singing along as he led from the fiddle. “It was fun. It was the first time I’d performed at the Proms, and I’d only been in the hall once before, to hear Nigel Kennedy. In the second half, people in the audience handed him drinks, and he starting riffing in and out of Jimi Hendrix. He treated it like his living room. So maybe that helped me with the folk music thing.”

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