As we wrap up 2019, I’m counting down Imperfect Action’s top 10 most popular episodes. At #8 is Tuomas Rounakari.
Tuomas is one of the few people to have been on the show more than once and the only to have two episodes in the top 10. Tuomas is a Ph.D. student, an ethnomusicologist, composer, and violinist, perhaps best known for his work with the folk metal band Korpiklaani. In this episode he discusses challenges and new realities of the music business, the importance of authenticity over best business practices, creating alignment with inspiration, and using joy as a guidestone for decisions. Philosophical and practical, our conversation goes much deeper than music or business and touches on living an authentic life with impact. This episode struck a deep chord with me and I’ve gone back and listened to it many times.  

Tuomas Rounakari, Violinist, Composer, Ethnomusicologist
Tuomas Rounakari is an internationally acclaimed violinist, composer and an ethnomusicologist from Finland. Currently rocking the world with his fiddle in the phenomenal folk-metal band Korpiklaani with close to a hundred live shows per year globally. Tuomas Rounakari is often referred as a shaman violinist after his solo performance entitled Shamanviolin that is still going strong.
The Shamanviolin performance was born in reaction to his studies on archived Siberian shamanic songs. These songs had an immense affect to his personality. Through studying these songs he found both an explanation and a conscious way back to the trance state experiences in his early childhood. (You can read the story in his own words here)
Tuomas Rounakari is a founding member and a music director of a theatre group Ruska Ensemble, with an agenda to promote collaboration between first nations across the arctic areas. Ruska Ensemble has collaborated with Finnish National Theatre (Helsinki), Ob-Ugrian National Theatre (Khanty-Mansijsk), The Sámi National Theatre Beaivvaś (Koutakeino) and the National Theatre of Greenland (Nuuk).
Rounakari has also done field work among the Khanty people in Siberia as an ethnomusiclogist. One outcome of these fieldtrips is a Bear Feast performance that combines ritual, music, theatre and dance in a four-hour event. Rounakari’s version of the Bear Feast evokes the mythical bear living inside of us today. The performance is based on shared mythology between the Finns, Khanty, Mansy and Sámi people combining ancient poetry and modern poems from Jüri Wella and Scott. M. Nomaday.
One of his most recent projects is a spin off band from the Bear Feast performance entitled Ohtoni with Pekko Käppi, Antti Paalanen and Karoliina Kantelinen.
A key to understanding Tuomas Rounakari’s artistic world is an emphasis on dialogue in multiple levels. Dialogue between cultures, dialogue between ancient, present and future, dialogue with mythical entities and dialogue between man and nature. This emphasize in dialogue is both respecting ancient traditions and creating something new and unique. Traditions remain vital when they are both preserved and challenged at the same time. This approach has led Rounakari to revitalize several traditions from near extinction.
Over the course of twenty years, Tuomas Rounakari has taught over a thousand people to create personal lament songs using the principles of ancient Carelian laments, that became nearly extinct after the Second World War. In these laments, also known as the songs of rites of passage, Rounakari found a musical tool that resembled Eurasian shamanic songs but belongs to his own Finnish-Carelian heritage. Together with Pirkko Fihlman, Rounakari created a method of teaching laments that practically revitalized the genre. Today he is consulting the lament revival starting in Ireland with the first seminar and workshop on keening already held at ...