David Chevallier and Anett Tamm
Vuotalo Cultural Center
Borders Tour
Helsinki, Finland
November 19, 2024

The concert in the eastern suburb of Helsinki marked the first of 24 concerts spread over far-flung cities in Finland and Estonia in November and December, 2024, seeing the artists trek through a very Scandinavian blizzard to make the first date on time. The ensemble had started this tour in France, under the title Borders, but after a short series of concerts in 2021 this was its first major exposure abroad. In fact their first Finnish audience was an afternoon workshop in a local school, which maybe helped them focus on their typically rather reserved Finnish audiences ahead.

As it was, the program received a very warm response despite the weather, the rather distant location and the foreignness of the languages used. Estonian is maybe the language closest related to Finnish, but is still difficult for an untutored ear to understand, which made it a blessing that about half the songs were in English. Not only is it the language of international business, but for musicians too, it is a unifying factor, in this case bringing together the Estonian singer Anett Tamm and the French trio led by guitarist