"I'm trying to find any reason to move to Estonia," says Monique Clare mid-way through her solo show at the 2024 Seto Folk Festival. "I'm obsessed with it here. That and listening to Harry Potter audiobooks."

It's a spectacular summer evening in Värska, South Estonia when Monique takes to the stage. Armed with her trusty cello and an unrivaled enthusiasm for all things Estonian, it's her second show here in as many days. Thanks to her unique brand of indie-folk, Monique has already won plenty of new Estonian admirers this weekend – and the feeling is clearly mutual.

"It's like I was born in the wrong country or something. I just really like it. It's so advanced technologically but still so connected to nature and tradition and I just love that," Monique tells me after the show.

She first came to Estonia 13 years ago after earning a scholarship to study on a music exchange program. "I think that there was a choice of four different countries when I was contemplating being an exchange student," Monique says.

"Sweden sounded cool but it was too expensive. I'd heard that Arvo Pärt was from Estonia and I really liked his music, so I thought, 'well that's a good enough reason to choose a country,'" she laughs.

"And I'm so glad that I did."

***

Since then, Monique's career has taken her to some pretty far-out places. She's given cello lessons in war-torn Afghanistan, led hikers to the top of mountains to perform concerts while the sun comes up, and even played live on stage with the Real Slim Shady.

Despite all that, Estonia is the place that seems to have truly captured Monique's heart – and she's not shy about announcing her feelings to the crowd at Seto Folk.

After blasting through a cover version of Beyonce's "Crazy in Love," and a selection of songs from her 2022 album "Sight," Monique pauses. She's translated one of her songs – "I've Been Gone" –  into Estonian, she tells the crowd, and this will be the first time she's had a chance to perform it for an audience that understands all the words.

It's a bold move, but judging by the response, Monique's efforts have definitely paid off. As soon as she puts her cello down and walks off stage, a swarm of Estonian fans rush to meet Monique, compliment her on her language skills and snap up copies of her record.

"Estonian feels like this really fun puzzle to me," Monique tells me after she's finished signing all the copies of "Sight," she's brought to sell.

"I think it's how [in Estonian] you have these different cases and then you put something on the end and you stack things – the sentence structure and all of that. It's ridiculous but it's like a fun game almost."

Still, it's one thing holding a conversation in Estonian and quite another rewriting the words of your own song and then performing it in front of a festival crowd. How easy was it to do that?

"Not easy at all," Monique laughs.

"In English, we have so many single-syllable words like 'jump," 'want,' 'calm,' or 'peace,' so, it's easy to write songs in English – you can kind of fit a word in anywhere. But with Estonian, because of all of that stacking, it's so hard to find a word that's just one syllable that you can fit in the same spot where the original English word fit."

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Monique admits, that when she first came here more than a decade ago, she didn't know too much about Estonian music – apart from Arvo Pärt that is.

It was her host mum from those days, Külli, who is also with Monique at Seto Folk, who introduced her to some more contemporary artists – Mari Jürjens quickly became one of Monique's favorites.

"Külli gave me some CDs. And then, I actually came back to Estonia two years later and went to Viljandi Folk Music Festival, where I discovered Maarja Nuut, who is just amazing," Monique explains.

"There was also a band of three women (at Viljandi Folk), who were playing violins and singing at the same time. I can't remember their name and I don't think they play anymore, but I got their album and discovered lots of Estonian music through that."

***

A week after her double-header at Seto Folk, Monique is in the U.K., performing at the Cambridge Folk Festival on the same bill as legends like Ralph McTell and Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant.

But before she leaves, there's still time to partake in "the extremely Estonian activity of picking strawberries in the forest and then cooking them in an apple and kohupiim (quark or curd – ed.) cake," she writes on social media.

"I would definitely love to come back and tour in Estonia," Monique tells me, and she's keeping her fingers crossed for the chance to take to the stage at Viljandi Folk Music Festival someday. "I'm just waiting for that moment. Please let me in," she smiles.

And, after receiving such a positive response here in Värska for the Estonian version of "I've Been Gone,", what are the chances of Monique returning in the future with a whole album in Estonian?

"Oh my God, that would be hilarious if my life goes in that direction," she laughs.

"But, well, you never know. I guess you can never say never."

***

More information about Monique Clare is available here.

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