Arvo Pärt's Inspiration: Discovering the Magic of Estonia's Forests and Sounds

“I’m just back from a magical few days in the forests of Estonia as part of a little audio adventure and summer residency.

Several years ago, at the height of the pandemic, we did a brilliant digital event with the Arvo Part Centre combining a pre-recorded concert and a conversation with musicians Andres Kaljuste and Sophia Rahman and Arvo’s son Michael. For a while when we didn’t realise how disruptive the pandemic would be, I was going to be there in person, in the forest. As it was, I chaired the conversation online from my home, in London. So I’ve long nurtured a dream to get out and finally explore what it was about the forests and seas of Laulasmaa, ‘the land of songs’, that inspired Arvo Part and so many musicians.

And this summer, I managed to make it. I wandered through the forests, explored the summer cottages at Helikula, ‘the village of sound’, that musicians from the Union of Composers during Soviet Times were officially given, spent time in the Arvo Pärt Centre and swam in the seas.  I was privileged to meet and hear from some brilliant contemporary composers, actors, artists and experts about what it was about the landscape that inspired them, whether there was something quintessentially Estonian about it, and whether it was the act of living and writing in the actual landscape or the memories of their childhood, the warmth and the light that become a writing inspiration during the long winters. 

I thought that I was going to make a podcast about how the natural world inspires musicians, and inevitably because this is Dash Arts after all, the podcast became about something else, too. It remains, I hope, a podcast about the beauty of the landscape but what I learnt through conversations was how precious the national landscape is to Estonians. Estonia is such a new country and its physical ownership of the land still quite young. Talking and engaging with the land and its forests is a political act, even if it’s a subconscious one.  

So, our podcast, which will emerge in early September in time for Arvo Pärt’s 89th birthday, will try to capture the music and the sounds of the forests and conversations that I had with people in them. It won’t quite capture their beauty but I hope that it will capture the peace and stillness I found in them.”

- Josephine Burton, Dash Arts Artistic Director