Old Forest Echoes is the vision of internationally renowned singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Barbora Xu (CZ/FI), who spends prolonged periods in endangered old growth forest areas of Finland. Conducting artistic research involving deep personal songwriting journeys, Barbora and her team also explore the forest to locate the best wilderness concert venues. The venues are transformed into a living piece of art by Wiebke Pandikow and become the Old Forest Echeos forest tour venues open to public. To bring the music from the old growth forests to festivals and venues, experienced sound artist Mikko Haapoja prepares surround system soundscape installations to stand alone or encapsulate a live concert. Barbora collaborates with numerous renowned artists such as Niklas Winter, Ilkka Heinonen, Jenni Venäläinen, Petra Jelenkova, making every single concert a unique event.
music
Czech singer and multi-instrumentalist Barbora Xu (Barbora Šilhánová) has been working in Europe and Asia, exploring local poetry, string instruments, vocal techniques while composing music. Her work is deeply inspired by nature, the calmness, fragility and softness experienced in the natural light and soundscapes of forests, the fullness of human voice and handmade instruments combined.
Her latest album The Garden of Otava reaching n.7 at the World Music Charts Europe in 2025, Barbora was also awarded the Mention of International Jury at the world music competition Premio Andrea Parodi in Sardinia only few months later.
"Barbora Xu" is an artist name combining Barbora´s actual given name and her legal Chinese name, given to her later in life. The idea behind combining those two names was to amplify her individual attraction to Chinese language, medecine, tea, music, martial arts...
"We all stand with our feet on the ground that someone walked before us. We draw from what our ancestors gave us and look over the horizont to find the things we need to find in order to live in motion forwards. I have been captivated by Chinese culture since I was a child and this is why I decided to learn as much as I could. The culture is so different from ours and yet stemming from the same deep original source. Bridging our different traditions in music, joining our esthetic perspectives in one artistic project is my way of showing respect and promoting peace and acceptance across the globe on individual level."
Barbora started her music career while studying to be a China expert. Upon graduating from her Master’s, she took a break from international relations and started performing on guzheng and kantele. Already within the first years of her music career, Barbora has been chosen to the venerated UK music project Making Tracks, doing a tour around the UK high-end venues such as the King’s Place in London. At the same time, she was accepted to the prestigious Finnish arts university, the Sibelius Academy. This has been a gate-opening experience for the young artist. In 2021, Barbora’s first album came out released by the award-winning German label Nordic Notes. The album Olin Ennen was immediately acclaimed by the international music community placing n.11 in the WMCE and n.21 in TWMC, picked for the German Record Critics’ Award, the Podwireless Best Of 2021. Since then Barbora
Featured ArtistS
Except for live improvisations recorded during Barbora´s stay in the forests, a number of acknowledget artists come onto the project as guests. Among others, a world known jazz guitarist Niklas Winter, Czech folk violinist Petra Jelénková, kantele player Jenni Venäläinen.
Ilkka Heinonen is a Helsinki-based musician and composer specialising in folk and world music, playing the jouhikko, double bass, violone and viola da gamba - with a passion for early music. As one of the pioneers of jouhikko playing, Heinonen has sought to expand the possibilities of the instrument. In his solo programmes, Heinonen explores the boundaries between the sacred and the secular through the performance practices of Karelian jouhikko music and early music, as on his solo instrumental album Käki (2023), which explores the sound of the instrument in depth. The Ilkka Heinonen Trio, which has released two critically acclaimed albums (Savu 2015 and Lohtu 2021), draws its experimental sound from European jazz and Renaissance music alike.
Heinonen has also premiered all the concertos composed for the jouhikko so far (comp. Timothy Page 2013, Krishna Nagaraja 2017). Heinonen plays the jouhikko in Ensemble Gamut!, which combines elements of medieval music, Finnish folk songs, improvisation and electronic soundscapes. The ensemble's unique sound can be heard in concerts and on the albums UT(2020) and RE (2022). Sámi singer Ánnámáret's band has taken Heinonen deep into the world of ancient luohtis, contemporary music and electronically manipulated jouhikko sounds, as in the albums Nieguid Duovdagat (2021) and Bálvvosbáiki (2024). Heinonen has also performed with jouhikko quartet Jouhiorkesteri in numerous countries from Europe to Asia. Ilkka Heinonen is active as a double bassist and G-violone player in baroque ensembles and performs especially in Nordic and Eastern European folk music ensembles. Heinonen also works regularly with contemporary dance and music theatre. Heinonen is currently completing his artistic doctorate on the expressive possibilities of the jouhikko at the Sibelius Academy's MuTri doctoral programme.
Joni Vierre is a Finnish musician, freelancer, composer, artist and educator. His main instruments are acoustic guitar, electric guitar, mandolin and voice, and for the past few years he has been learning the kora (a West African harp-lute instrument). Joni’s main interest in music is in composing, improvisation and collaborative music making. In his past, he was strongly involved in jazz music, of which you can hear reflections in his playing. Nowadays Joni avoids putting himself in any particular musical genre but rather approaches music from a composers’ point of view allowing him to draw inspiration from all over the world. Joni graduated as a musician from the conservatory of Turku in (2015), and Bachelor of Music from the Sibelius Academy Global Music department Helsinki (2022) where he is currently working on his Master studies.
Minna Koskenlahti is a percussion player currently living in Helsinki. As a versatile musician, her playing has been heard in several bands, projects and albums. At the moment she is working with her solo project and playing in bands such as Barlast, Perpetuum Lokomobile and Meriheini Luoto & Metsänpeitto. With her background in Nordic folk music, Minna has a melodic approach to percussion instruments. Minna is curious about finding the limits and limitlessness of her instruments, creating minimalistic, intensive and hypnotic sounds. Koskenlahti graduated from Sibelius Academy’s Folk Music Department (University of Arts, Helsinki) in 2018 with a master’s degree in music.
Land Art
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Wiebke Pandikow is a craft and material based visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. She has been working mostly in the field of jewelry since 2013, developing her own techniques to turn discarded plastic bags into wearble pieces and sculpture. More recently she has turned to ancient basketry techniques to transform this ambiguous modern material. Alongside that more small scale work she has also turned toward land art, creating site-specific installations using only material found in the direct environment in Finland as well as Sweden as part of a project called Land Jewelry.
Wiebke will create site-specific art installations, using materials sourced from the immediate environment. These pieces will have two main functions: as a kind of stage to Barbora Xu’s concerts, but also as a connector between forest and human audience. They will be a non-invasive and temporary human intervention, interacting with and benefiting from a diverse forest environment without harming it.
The pieces will be strongly influenced by the specific location of each forest and the moment in time that they are created, incorporating aspects of spontaneity and improvisation. This will create unique pieces of art for every forest venue. They will live and change over time with the environment around them. Eventually, they will disappear, all material returning to the forest.
Soundscapes
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Mikko H. Haapoja is a media artist, music producer and multi-instrumentalist from Helsinki, Finland. Haapoja works with various music genres – from acoustic to electronic. In his solo project Unheard Landscapes, Haapoja plays Finnish traditional bowed lyres and live electronics combined with his field-recordings from around the globe. Since 2010 Haapoja has captured the sonic image of Helsinki in his project Helsingin reitit – The Routes of Helsinki. The latest piece of the series ’Keskusmetsä’ (The Central Forest) represented Finland in EBU's Prix Palma Ars Acustica competition in 2023.
Haapoja’s art has been exhibited in various galleries and museums in Finland and internationally for example in Tokyo, New York and Berlin. Meanwhile, Haapoja has recorded many acclaimed global music albums like Okra Playground's Turmio, Nathan Riki Thomson's Resonance and Sarah Palu's Etno-Emma 2021 nominated Ikivirta.
GENERAL INQUIRIES
Carly Markkanen
info(at)oldforestechoes.com
DIRECTOR
Barbora Silhanova
barbora(at)oldforestechoes.com