Finnish Säkkipilli – State of the Art

Markus Rantanen (Finland)
Markus is a music educator and performing artist, as well as a “Finnd’it initiative” member.
He has specialised in a range of string music instruments – teaches guitar, ukulele, folk music and songwriting at Turun seudun musiikkiopisto.
Markus is also the creator of a performing act for children’s – Maestro Markus, a man who knows everything about folk music and who can play almost every instrument in the world including an assortment of Bagpipes. Maestro Markus and his assistant Doctor Fiktio Fakta have done over 500 performances in schools and kindergartens.
Markus experiments in an assortment of bagpipes, from the German hümmelchen to the bulgarian Gaidja, but has in fact studied first the Estonian torupil bagpipe at the Tartu University Viljandi Culture Academy.
Markus is a book author of four published ukulele books, one children’s book about Finnish folk instruments and one songbook of traditional songs from his hometown, Laitila.
Markus holds a Masters in Music, having graduated from the Sibelius Academy.

Gonçalo Cruz (Portugal)
Gonçalo is a full time Researcher, Musician, Educator & Maker of Bagpipes, as well as the founder of the “Finnd’it initiative”.
He has witnessed first-hand the complete revival process of local bagpipes in Portugal. He has spent the last 20 years researching, playing, teaching and building bagpipes as well as maintaining a professional bagpipe making workshop.
He is also a music composer and guest musician on live and recorded performances, founder of non-profit Portuguese Trad. music organizations such as “arrefole”, “PortoCeltico” or “GaitaMaker”.
Currently he is conducting research as a Doctoral candidate at the Uniarts – Sibelius Academy: “Forgotten Bagpipes – The redesign of the Säkkipilli in Finland”.
Being a piper-musician, a designer-architect and a bagpipe maker, he has been at a unique position to promote the bridging of knowledge between Music Performers, Designers, Historians, Ethno-musicologists, Archaeologists…
Gonçalo holds a Master’s degree in Architecture and a tutor’s pedagogical aptitude certificate.