Photo: Eeva Anundi

Liisa Matveinen (born 1961 in Ilomantsi, Finland)

Liisa Matveinen grew up in Ilomantsi in the Eastern Finland, a village famous for its traditional oral poetry singers. Her favourite hobbies were the youth choir and the brass band.

When the Sibelius Academy started its folk music education program in 1983, Liisa was among the first students, she studied Kantele playing and, later, also singing. The first year students formed a folk music group called Niekku including Liisa, Anu Itäpelto, Leena Joutsenlahti, Arto Järvelä, Maria Kalaniemi and Anna-Kaisa Liedes. They made three records: Niekku, Niekku 2 and Niekku 3. The members of the group participated together with their music teacher Heikki Laitinen (now the professor of the Folk Music Department in the Academy) in the planning and implementation of the musical education and contents of the folk music department. When she was still a student, Liisa participated in the creation of teaching methods and objectives for the education of Finnish folk singing and she was already teaching younger students. She was also member of different folk music groups during her studies, such as Tallari, Etnopojat and Lai.

In 1989 she got her Master of Music degree, after which she was holding a municipal office as a member of the official Finnish folk music group Tallari at Kaustinen until 1994. The albums recorded at that time are called: Kymmenen pennin ryyppy, Lunastettava neito, Ottilia and Konsta. Since then she has continued to co-operate with Tallari. She is performing on the record made in 2003 called Runonlaulutanssit by Liisa, Tellu, Taito and Tallari including mostly oral poetry from Ilomantsi with compositions varying from tango to humppa and valse and, even, samba.

The co-operation with Tellu Turkka begun in 1996 with the record Suden Aika, the quartet existed already then, only under another composition. She made another record with Tellu, called Mateli, a project that was created when Liisa returned to her native village Ilomantsi where she worked from 1995 to 2001. She was teaching in the Ilomantsi Kansalaisopisto (Evening Classes), Joensuu University and in the Joensuu Conservatory side department at Rääkkylä. In 1999 Liisa was asked to join the Swedish group Hedningarna that Tellu had left in 1996, later also Tellu rejoined the group in 2001-03.

Liisa has been touring the world with different bands: in USA, South-Africa, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Greenland, Island, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Great Britain, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Russia, Estonia, Turkey, Spain, Portugal and the Czech Republic.

She is now living in Jämsä, a town between Jyväskylä and Tampere, raising three daughters, touring with the band, composing and arranging. Read more: www.neta.fi/matveinen.

Contact Liisa at: liisa@sudenaika.com