Performance of “Maja from the Storm Skerries” for ESIN AGM 2020 culture mash-up

The talented amateur chamber orchestra of Pargas,  played Stormskärs Maja, “Maja from the Storm Skerries”, as part of the Culture Mash-up section of the ESIN AGM 2020.

Finnish representative to ESIN, Pia Prost, adds: “Author Anni Blomqvist (1909–1990) wrote the Stormskärs-Maja series of five novels in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Set in the Åland islands in the mid-to-late 19th century and drawing on events from her own family history, they tell the story of Maja, the second of seven children, who grows up at Vestergård farm on the island of Simskäla and goes on to forge a life with a husband ( a man not of her own choosing) and children on a remote island in the Åland archipelago.

The real Stormskäret, the isolated island to which Maja moves with her husband at the end of the first book in the series, was the island of Väderskär in the north-east of the Åland archipelago, barely a couple of kilometres square. The books were made into a successful television series in the 1970s. 

The song “Maija from the Storm Skerries” is a lyrical tune arranged primarily for piano. It was recorded by Lasse Mårtenson, a Swedish Finnish singer, composer, actor and theatre conductor. But in Finland, he is actually best known as the composer of the song about Maja.”