Hi everybody!

I'm Maija and I'd like to share what I'm working on right now. Truth is — it’s not something I can “show” just yet. But it's a theater play about Eeva Kilpi and with her poems as songs. And while I have all the sheet music, I haven’t gathered it all into something shareable yet. But the songs are there and I'll try to share it soon.

We’ve had four days of working on the play, which blends her poems into something dramatic and musical. The play itself is written by Kati Kaartinen - an amazing Finnish playwright!

People ask what it’s like to work with poems. It’s not collaboration in the traditional sense. I don’t write the texts — Eeva did that. I take the poem exactly as it is, no rhyming, no editing, and build the music around its integrity. Demanding, but deeply alive.

Her poems are legendary in Finland. They’re rooted in saving the forests, in nature, in aging, in resistance. The play revolves around Eeva herself — now 97 and living. That adds weight. Ethical questions arise when you’re working with living people’s lives, their legacy. We’re being very careful.

Just started talking with a playwright agent to explore how to get this play and music out there more widely. But there’s also a mountain of admin: agreements, permissions (Teosto forms still pending), rights to poems… all part of the process. Lots of admin stuff.

Setting poems to music is my favorite kind of work. I’m quick with it. The actors love singing these songs. And when it all comes together — when a poem becomes a melody, and the melody lives inside someone else’s voice — it’s something else entirely.