Polenta

Polenta is a quartet of three fiddles and a guitar and I was delighted to be asked to photograph them at the Orkney Folk Festival this summer. The band is from Finland and their name, Polenta, is Finnish slang for stomp. It’s an accurate description of their style.

Fiddlers Veera Kuisma, Olli Sippola, Aino Kinnunen and guitarist Mikko Malmivaara are based in Helsinki.

I’d heard wonderful things about Polenta but had to wait until the Saturday at the Northern Tracks and Tides gig at the Stromness Town Hall to experience the thrill of hearing them live. The event was kindly sponsored by Orkney Transport Limited – who are great for all your private coach hire needs. Live music doesn’t happen without the vision and generosity of sponsors.

Photographing so many bands I love and hearing their music up close has been a great experience.

It does leave me with a problem, though, as I want to buy everything at the merchandise table. Polenta have all three of their albums for sale at the merch table. They also have Finnish socks for sale. Tempting, very, very tempting.

I’m excited to see that I’m back photographing them on the Sunday at the Town Hall in Stromness. I can’t wait.

The lighting inside the hall isn’t the strongest, so I decide I’m going to go for a more graphic approach to my photographs today.

Polenta is all action as well as producing a wonderful sound.

It’s time for their final farewell.

And time for my visit to the merch table. I buy all three of their CDs.

I decide against the socks.

Here’s a taster of what they sound like live:

More Orkney Folk Festival 2026