Mauno Järvelä

Who is Mauno Järvelä?

Mauno Järvelä is a Finnish fiddler, violinist and music pedagogue. He is the uncle of Arto Järvelä, and both of them are members in the successful folk music group JPP, whose roots are the pelimanni tradition from Kaustinen. Mauno Järvelä also plays in Timo Alakotilas tango project Unto Tango Orchestra together with, among others, Maria Kalaniemi.

Mauno Järvelä learned fiddling from his father, Johannes Järvelä, who was the son of the well known wedding fiddler Antti Järvelä. He was also trained as a classical violinist at the Sibelius Academy before they had a department for folk music, and he has worked as a violinist in symphony orchestra. In the 2000s, he has so far been active mainly as music teacher, teaching adults and children in Kaustinen to play the violin using both folk music and classical training, and partly learning by ear. The children's project in Kaustinen is called Näppärit. His teaching method is partly related to the Suzuki method and is widely nicknamed the sisuki method.

He also plays an important part in arranging folk music projects including young people from all the Nordic countries, based on the notion that traditional Nordic dance music from the different Nordic countries have much in common.