Christmas concert at the Finlayson Church

Today we went to listen to a romani singer, Pertti Palm, perform at the church that is located next to our house.

It was a very nice, colourful experience. Not Finnish in the least bit: no stuffy, solemn silence here. There were the three grandchildren of the singer - seen in this picture with their mother- selling tickets and CDs before the concert. During the concert they were running around the church or chattering at the background, or joining the singer with the Christmas carols.

There were an accordion player and an organ - or maybe it was a synthetisizer - player, too. The keyboard player was quite a character with loads of special effects that he conjured from his instrument: church bells, horses clogging by, trumpets sounding etc. It was quite hilarious.

Mr Palm had a strong, warm voice, and he also sang some songs in the Romani language.