23.10.18 ... Cultural programme OP+ recently interviewed author Elin Toona, a refugee Estonian living in the Southeastern US state of Florida, who talked about growing up with her grandmother, her grandfather, poet and children's author Ernst Enno, and her life in the West, among other topics.
22.10.18 ... Moonika Siimets' "The Little Comrade" ("Seltsimees laps"), the opening film of the Estonia 100 film programme, earned three top awards at the Waterloo Historical Film Festival (WaHFF), which concluded in Belgium late Sunday night.
15.10.18 ... A selection of cultural events taking place in Estonia this week as curated by culture.ee: "In the third week of October, Lars von Trier's controversial new film will finally be shown in Estonian cinemas, the Arvo Pärt Centre will open its doors in Laulasmaa, very different bodies will meet at the Stage of Independent Dance (STL)... and there's a possibility that you will see two extraordinary pictures if you happen to be in the right neighbourhood in Tartu."
15.10.18 ... The all new Arvo Pärt Centre in Laulasmaa east of Tallinn is opening its doors to the public on Wednesday this week. The centre's new building is the latest in a by now long line of cultural efforts made in Estonia's centennial year.
15.10.18 ... Vahur Afanasjev is a multifaceted man who has written poetry as well as prose, produced films, performed music, and dabbled in many other creative arts. Time and again, these activities have landed him in Estonia's spotlight. Yet when his novel Serafima and Bogdan was published last year, it became resoundingly clear that Afanasjev is a writer above all – and a fantastic one at that. The novel first won the Estonian Writers' Union's Novel Competition and then, this spring, received the most esteemed local literary prize: the Cultural Endowment of Estonia's Award for Prose. To top it off, the work has been highly acclaimed and is currently being translated into English for publishing in the UK. Serafima and Bogdan is a pan-generational story about the lives of Russian Orthodox Old Believers inhabiting the western shore of Lake Peipus. It endeavors to determine the driving forces behind revenge and violence, as well as to comprehend what man's role is here on earth.
11.10.18 ... Initially on display at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, "Wild Souls" is opening in KUMU in Tallinn on Friday. The exhibition displays more than 100 works by notable artists from the Baltic countries dating from the late 19th century to the 1930s.
11.10.18 ... English-language web magazine Estonian World (EW) has requested support from the state to the tune of €5,000 for the remainder of 2018, and €20,000 for 2019. The alternative, the magazine says, is potential closure of the site.
09.10.18 ... Construction of the new museum started on 6 October, if everything goes according to plan, the museum will open to the public in July next year.
09.10.18 ... Starting on Tuesday, the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Ethnography (ICOM-ICME) is meeting in Tartu for its 51st annual conference, a three-day event that is assembling the world's museum gurus in Estonia's unofficial capital. At the conference, the experts are discussing the latest developments in the world of museums, an increasingly challenging field in the fast-paced world of today.
06.10.18 ... "It's the absolute antithesis of any showcase festival I have ever attended," says Richard Foster, who covered Station Narva for UK-based music webzine Drowned in Sound. ERR News is republishing his review of the unique music festival with the site's kind permission, documenting an Estonian experience of the sort you will want to hear more about.
05.10.18 ... Applications from three Estonian cities — Tartu, Narva and Kuressaare — were submitted to the competition for the status of European Capital of Culture 2024 by the 1 October deadline.
05.10.18 ... Construction at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds is underway to ensure that singers at the 150th anniversary of the Song Festival in 2019 can feel safe onstage standing under the iconic arch as they perform.
05.10.18 ... This year's edition of the Turku Book Fair in Southwestern Finland begins on Friday and will feature the Republic of Estonia's centennial as a main theme. The three-day fair will include several discussion panels featuring well-known Estonian and Finnish writers and literary people, as well as an Estonian-themed sub-programme including Estonian poetry, music, karaoke and exhibits.
04.10.18 ... It can seem funny to think of the details of our daily lives as a part of history, but isn't history just a collection of stories about daily lives? The clothes we wear, the music we listen to, and — as shown in this exhibit — the furniture that we use to decorate our homes often represents larger social, cultural, and political stories.
02.10.18 ... The Music Endowment of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Estonian Music Council marked International Music Day on 1 October with the 11th Music Awards gala held at Tallinn Airport.
01.10.18 ... A selection of cultural events taking place in Estonia this week as curated by culture.ee: "In the first week of October, one can explore architectural formations of modernism in the context of an industrial city, see the sports, ballet and religious worlds from the LGBT+ perspective, study the essence of light and get acquainted with French animated films."
26.09.18 ... Nine copyright societies have turned to the Supreme Court of Estonia demanding the state pay them a total of €42 million in the so-called blank media levy for the period of 2014-2017, inclusive of interest. Minister of Justice Urmas Reinsalu (Pro Patria), however, hopes to settle out of court.
26.09.18 ... 26 September is the European Day of Languages. On this occasion, ERR's Vikerraadio along with the Representation of the European Commission in Estonia have put together a radio quiz.
24.09.18 ... A selection of cultural events taking place in Estonia this week as curated by culture.ee: "During the last week of September, consider attending a lecture about continental ice masses in Tallinn or a creative writing workshop in Tartu. ...An apple festival in Põhja-Tallinn and a weekend in the open air at the Estonian Open Air Museum are also on the menu."
21.09.18 ... The inaugural edition of the three-day music and city culture festival Station Narva begins in Narva on Friday, with British trip-hop pioneer Tricky to headline the opening evening at Kreenholm Manufacturing Company.
20.09.18 ... This month, Tallinn's Opera and Ballet House (Rahvusooper) finds time in its permanently frenetic schedule to host a new production of La fanciulla del West, by Puccini. Set in the old American West, it deserves to be as familiar as La bohème and Madama Butterfly, or, for hitherto opera ignorati such as myself, even simply Nessun Dorma as it accompanied Paul Gascoigne's crying at the 1990 World Cup Finals.*
20.09.18 ... Tallinn's Wandering Lights (Valgus kõnnib) festival started on Wednesday, with light installations in Kadriorg Park still to see on Thursday and continuing in the medieval Old Town on 20 and 21 September. Thousands of candles are lit along with more than 60 installations by local and international artists.
17.09.18 ... Almost 65,000 people visited the first ever monographic exhibit of Estonian Renaissance painter Michel Sittow, titled "Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe," during the just over three months that the exhibit was on display at Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn.
14.09.18 ... Churches are now due money from the state, as a bill aimed at utilising a damages fund for wartime and occupation restitution may well be abandoned, according to Minister of Public Administration Janek Mäggi (Centre).
12.09.18 ... This September, the Estonian Institute (Eesti Instituut) is organising several programs and events for global expats living in Estonia.
07.09.18 ... The city council of Pärnu supported a proposal yesterday that Pärnu, in a joint bid with Tartu and Viljandi, should campaign to become the European Capital of Culture 2024.
06.09.18 ... The application round for artists wanting to participate in the 11th annual Tallinn Music Week in March 2019 is open. The closing date for applications is 1 November, according to the organisers.
01.09.18 ... This summer, what would appear to be just another Tallinn construction site became something of a celebrated case as the preliminary digging work led to the discovery of a wealth of mostly domestic artefacts from the late middle ages. The find, in Tallinn's Kalamaja district, effectively filled in a gap in knowledge about society in Estonia in the 15th century.
30.08.18 ... The 12th annual Uue Mailma street festival takes place in Tallinn on 1-2 September, featuring live music, art, street food, workshops, sports and games and children's activities as the district, located south of the city centre between Suur Ameerika and Tehnika streets, sees its thoroughfares mostly closed to traffic to accommodate the attractions and ensuing crowds.
29.08.18 ... For Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, 2018 marks a century since their first declaration of independence. To celebrate their centennials and explore the cultural ties between the three Baltic states, the Estonian Institute has dedicated this issue of Estonian Art to Baltic cultural collaborations. It looks at not just present collaborations in the fields of art, design, and architecture, but also on landmark historical cultural collaborations.
27.08.18 ... Trip hop pioneer Tricky is set to headline the Station Narva festival in September, single-day tickets for which go on sale on Monday, 27 August, it has been announced by the festival's organisers.
27.08.18 ... The brand new Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA) building opens on Monday, 27 August and ERR was there to capture photos of the new building and some of its facilities.
27.08.18 ... Bonfires were lit in Tallinn and along Estonia's coastline on 25 August as part of the annual Ancient Lights. The recurring campaign wants to raise awareness of the environmental state of the Baltic Sea, and celebrate ancient tradition in the area.
24.08.18 ... Tomorrow Saturday the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea celebrate the Ancient Lights night, a tradition revived to raise awareness of the environmental issues of the Baltic Sea and its fragile coastal ecology. On the night of 25 August, hundreds of bonfires will be lit along its shores. Read on for a map and a selection of places to go.
21.08.18 ... A week of summertime celebrations of the Estonian centennial which began last Friday, will conclude on Saturday, and is centered around Estonia's Day of Restoration of Independence on 20 August, has reached its halfway mark, with plenty more events yet to come over the next few days.
20.08.18 ... Tanel-Eiko Novikov failed to get through the semi-finals of the Eurovision Young Musicians 2018 competition (EYM), held in Edinburgh, Scotland, as part of the annual Edinburgh International Festival (EIF).
19.08.18 ... A week of summertime celebrations of the Estonian centennial focused around Estonia's Day of Restoration of Independence on 20 August began with Estonia's first ever poetry festival in Rakvere on Friday and will draw to a close on 25 August with the Night of Ancient Bonfires.
17.08.18 ... The Police and Border Guard are dispatching several hundred officers to this year's Weekend Festival in Pärnu. Several ten thousand visitors are expected to attend the 70 concerts and parties of the festival.
13.08.18 ... Some 10,000 festival-goers gathered in the central Estonian town of Paide on Friday and Saturday, to take part in the sixth annual Arvamusfestival ('opinion festival'). Additionally, many discussion events attracted online viewing figures in the thousands.
09.08.18 ... The sixth annual Arvamusfestival ('opinion festival') takes place this weekend in the central Estonian town of Paide.
08.08.18 ... Estonian Percussionist Tanel-Eiko Novikov, 17, the winner of ERR's Klassikatähed young person's classical music competition, is to head to the Edinburgh International Festival for Eurovision Young Musicians 2018 (EYM).
07.08.18 ... Minister of Culture Indrek Saar (SDE) has invitedrepresentatives of the Ministries of Culture of eight countries to participate in the inauguration ceremony of the new Arvo Pärt Centre in Laulasmaa, a coastal village located some 35km west of Tallinn.
06.08.18 ... A selection of cultural events taking place in Estonia this week as curated by culture.ee: "This week should be a real treat for those who love music, theatre, video art or local food. Dreamers, the sleepless and those with opinions will find something to do as well."
30.07.18 ... A selection of cultural events taking place in Estonia this week as curated by culture.ee: "This week offers plenty of music in various parts of Estonia, but refreshing art, theatre and cinema halls are also waiting for you."
30.07.18 ... Estonian-American literary critic, editor, publisher and journalist Hellar Grabbi died on Saturday; he was 88 years old.
20.07.18 ... The popular Saaremaa Opera Festival kicked off on Thursday with a production of Georges Bizet's classic opera "Carmen" by the visiting Shanghai Opera House, who is in Estonia for the occasion with a 225-member delegation.
19.07.18 ... The first ever Baltic Sun, a music festival dedicated to the Estonian centennial, began in Narva on Wednesday. The four-day event brings Estonian and international musicians alike to Estonia's northeastern border city, offering festivalgoers an array of music ranging from pop to rock, folk to jazz and indie to blues.
16.07.18 ... A selection of cultural events taking place in Estonia this week as curated by culture.ee: "This week's recommendations mix various topics such as photography, South Korean cinema, Soviet hippies, opera, death metal, farm life and Kadriorg Park. Choose a little of this and a little of that!"
13.07.18 ... With a flurry of last-minute preparations still underway before Saturday's opening, the press in Estonia was given a sneak peek at the revamped and expanded Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom in Tallinn on Thursday.
12.07.18 ... Estonia is huge. This is what you think every time you hear how many people get excited over the fact that they have visited Ida-Viru County for the first time ever and discovered how interesting of an area it is, writes Erik Gamzejev, editor-in-chief of the regional paper Põhjarannik.
