The west and the rest of classical music: Asian musicians in the Finnish media coverage of the 1995 Jean Sibelius Violin Competition

Introduction

Racism in Finland was not discussed in Finnish society or studied by scholars until the 1990s. Perhaps because of the small proportion of immigrants and fewness of ethnic minorities, it was commonly believed among the Finnish people that racism did not exist in their society (Rastas, 2005: 69). In the beginning of the 1980s and especially in the 1990s, Finland changed from a country of emigration into a country of immigration. This process increased and induced discussion on the themes of race, ethnicity and racism in everyday life and in media. Finnish scholars began to consider racism in Finnish society in various historical and local contexts. To date, race, ethnicity and racism in Finland have been studied mainly in the most axiomatic contexts – in connection to minorities, discrimination and immigrants. However, race and ethnicity can be significant in less axiomatic contexts, such as Western classical music, which should, according to the field’s ideology, be a field where cultural differences are dissolved.

In this article, I will discuss race, ethnicity and racism in the context of the Finnish media coverage of the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in 1995. ¹ This case is significant first because it occurred during a time of increased immigration to Finland, when racial tensions were high. Even if the concepts of race and ethnicity were not mentioned in the media coverage of the competition, race and racialization were present implicitly. It is significant as well because issues of race and racism are problematic in connection to the idea of musical autonomy. Since the second half of the 18th century, Western classical music has been grounded on the idea of musical autonomy, according to which the music itself does not have anything to do with extra-musical phenomena such as gender, nationality, race and ethnicity. In accordance with the ideology of autonomous music, only the quality of the musicians’ playing should matter in the evaluations of their performances. However, during the 1995 Sibelius Competition, media reports persisted in discussing the music in terms of these extra-musical features. In this process, the boundaries between what is intra-musical and what is extra-musical became unclear.

The International Sibelius Violin Competition was named after Finnish Composer Jean Sibelius and is held every 5 years in Helsinki. It is among the most respected violin competitions of the Western classical music field. Therefore, it is attractive for violinists around the world. The competition is widely acknowledged by the Finnish media, and thus the biggest audience for the competition consists of newspaper readers, radio listeners and TV viewers. The media texts dealing with the 1995 competition were especially interesting in relation to race and ethnicity because in the 1990s, Finnish society confronted significant social changes, and not just in terms of increased immigration. Finland was suffering from a very severe economic recession, for example, and also joined the European Union in 1995. During the recession, the discourse of securing national competitiveness was strengthened as the cornerstone of Finnish policies (Kantola, 2002). The processes set in motion by the recession accelerated the deconstruction of the boundaries between intra-musical and extra-musical in the media coverage of the 1995 Sibelius Competition, since the musicians’ identities were constructed along the categories of gender, nationality, race and ethnicity instead of the ‘purely musical’ features of their playing.

In 1995, 19-year-old Pekka Kuusisto became the first Finn to win the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition. Furthermore, he was the youngest violinist ever to win this competition. ‘Win for Finland!’ announced the Finnish media (Nevamäki-Karri, 1995; Pyysalo, 1995), thus claiming Kuusisto’s victory for Finland. The Finnish media paid a lot of attention to this victory as well as the nation’s win at the men’s Ice Hockey World Championship that same year; these served to provide a glimmer of hope in the midst of economic recession.

The Finnish media dealt with the 1995 Sibelius competition by dividing the competitors into national groups and constructing a variety of differences and power relationships among the groups. In addition to dividing the competitors into groups, the media appointed the competitors’ differences and samenesses redolent of the division of the groups:

The absence of Italy, the homeland of the violin, is striking. From France there is only one competitor, and from Spain there is none. Instead of this, out of altogether 57 competitors, 16 come from the Far East – there are no all-Americans at all! Only one out of five competitors from the US was ‘genuine’ – two of them came from Asia, and two were born in the region of the former Eastern bloc. How is the information about the competition distributed? (Lempinen, 1995)

The competitors are here not only divided on the grounds of their nationalities, their races and their ethnicities but were even categorized as more or less welcome in terms of their backgrounds. In a column published in Maaseudun Tulevaisuus, the second largest newspaper in Finland, one writer mused on the nationalities of the competitors as follows:

It is peculiar that the Soviet Union, and now Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea, distinguish themselves in the Sibelius competition. The East is more interested than the West. Among the winners, the West was represented by Finland and Denmark. Why is this? Is the rest of Europe still mesmerized by the German and Austrian classics? (Heikintytär, 1995) ²

Europe consists, on the one hand, of countries that have an immediate relationship with the most valued canonical works of Western classical music and also includes countries that do not. This difference in relationship to the Western classical music canon divides participants’ countries into the groupings of West and East, thus emphasizing that West and East are not solely defined by geographical boundaries. The writer expresses disappointment that a greater number of violinists did not represent the West in the competition. Moreover, the writer divides Western countries into two categories, with Finland and Denmark on the one hand and ‘the rest of Europe’ on the other.

These divisions raise questions about racial and ethnic relations. What differences concerning race were constructed in the media during the competition? What power relationships were inscribed in the categories produced by the groupings? In this article, I use the terms race and ethnicity despite the absence of these words in the Finnish media coverage of the 1995 Sibelius Competition, as the identities of the violinists in the competition were certainly constructed along the categories of race and ethnicity.

The 1995 Sibelius Competition attracted many competitors from Asia. Altogether, 16 out of the 57 participants came from the Far East. Thus, there was a lot of discussion about encounters between East and West in the Finnish media during the competition. The experiences of Asian musicians in Western classical music culture have received some attention in recent years in Asian studies of music (Hung, 2009; Yang, 2007; Yoshihara, 2007). These studies focus on the experiences of Asian American musicians in the United States, whereas this article concentrates on representations of Asian violinists in Finnish media. This article will contribute to the already existing body of the literature by providing a close reading of media coverage of one specific occasion in the 1990s in Finland. Since race and racism are not constant and static but context-specific issues, this close reading enables me to analyse in detail the representations of race and ethnicity in 1990s Finland in the media coverage of the Sibelius Competition. As I will show, racial and ethnic representations were essential in the media construction of musician identities. Thus, the media discourse on music did not follow the tenets of the autonomous music ideology. Rather, the dominant perspective in the media was strongly racialized.

Western classical music has been and is in many ways connected with Whiteness, despite the rareness of explicit expressions of race and ethnicity in connection with this music culture. ³ Perhaps because of the presumed abstract nature of music and the persistence of Romantic notions of music’s autonomy, music scholars have only just begun to address issues of race and raciality, Whiteness and postcolonialism (see Yang, 2007). There is an apparent contradiction in the culture of Western classical music. On the one hand, classical music is often considered to be a universal language that transcends race, nationality, gender and other categories of difference. On the other hand, as scholars of critical musicology and cultural studies of music have noted, the above mentioned differences are constitutive elements in the formation of identities in classical music culture. As Ronald Radano and Philip Bohlman (2000) remark, the intimate relationship between race and music has scarcely been discussed by contemporary music scholars. My aim in this article is to show how the discourse on Western classical music was racialized and offer a critique of this discourse in the media coverage of the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in 1995.

Newspaper articles on the 1995 Sibelius Competition were gathered with the help of the Sibelius Museum archives and especially with the help of the office of the Sibelius Competition, which used a Finnish media monitoring company (Sita) to gather all the print media coverage on the competition. I received permission to use their collection, which comprised 600 articles. The majority of the texts were newspaper articles; only 10 were published in weekly or monthly magazines. In addition to print media, I have also analysed daily radio programmes that were broadcast during the competition by Yle, Finland’s national public service broadcasting company. I collected the recordings of seven radio programmes from Yle’s archives. In these programmes, the journalists Eeva Hirvensalo and Outi Paananen commented on excerpts from the violinists’ performances and informed the listeners about the course of the competition. Moreover, journalist Anu Karlsson interviewed some of the violinists.

Otherness

The 1995 Sibelius Competition hosted several competitors from Japan. The Finnish News Agency (Suomen Tietotoimisto, STT) (1995) ⁴ reported that ‘the largest band of competitors came from Japan, altogether eight musicians, and they are all female’. The performances of Japanese competitors were described as follows by Seppo Heikinheimo, ⁵ the chief music critic of Helsingin Sanomat, which is the leading daily newspaper in Finland:

In general, one has to say that this competition has seen an amazingly magnificent display of Japanese women. All of them have played the well-rehearsed assignments very well. In addition to this, all have appeared on the stage in attractive outfits, which showed good taste. It can be said, out of hand, that under these girls’ beds there is no dust and in their fridges there is no musty cheese. Only one thing troubles me: Will they be grumpy disciplinarians later in life? (Heikinheimo, 1995)

This outlandish ⁶ text demonstrates the double Otherness of the ‘biggest group’ (Ritolahti, 1995) of the competition. The Japanese competitors were constructed as Other, first, in connection to race and ethnicity and, second, in connection to gender. ⁷ The indiscreet description constructs the difference between White and non-White female and male violinists. It would not have been possible to write like this about any other group of musicians.

The East–West difference has a long history in Western culture and Western classical music. As Edward Said (1978) famously stated, the Orient is one of the West’s and Europe’s deepest and most recurring images of the Other (p. 1). In addition, the Orient has helped to define Europe (the West) as its opposite in image, idea, personality and experience. For almost five centuries, Japan has been one of the most important Others of the West (see Morley and Roberts, 1995: 147). Because of this, one could assume that the numerousness of Japanese competitors would have given rise to concern about the status and state of the Western classical art of playing violin. ⁸ However, the Japanese violinists were not treated as a threat in the Finnish media. As a matter of fact, they were not even taken seriously as competitors. Only one statement about the high skill-level of the Japanese participants was published; the statement was made by Finnish competitor Kati Virtanen:

I don’t dare to hope for anything now. This competition has an extremely high standard. Many of the competitors already have several prizes from competitions. The Japanese are actually very proficient and also so calm. (Salakka-Kontunen, 1995)

Here occurs positive racializing by attributing a group stereotype following ideas about Eastern culture as proficient and peaceful. In most cases, however, the Japanese violinists were ascribed stereotypically negative attributes. These characteristics were reproduced in the media ad nauseam. The Finnish media described the Japanese musicians as homogeneous, impersonal, non-charismatic, technical players. They were not a threat to the Western violinists because their skills were considered to be weak. In his seminal book White, Richard Dyer (1997) claims that in most Western films, the greatest threat comes not from the native peoples or Mexicans, but from bad Whites. According to him, this does not tarnish the White project: ‘To make non-Whites the greatest threat would accord them qualities of will and skill, of exercising spirit, which would make them the equivalent of White people’ (p. 35). In the context of the Sibelius Competition, the Finnish media constructed for non-White violinists an ethnic and racial identity that automatically negated their ability to be noteworthy competitors for the White contestants.

The Sibelius Competition is intended for classical violinists. Because of this, it seems axiomatic that the competitors show their skills specifically in the Western tradition of playing violin. This issue was posed in Koivisto’s (1995) article discussing the cultural events of the 1995 competition:

What is the meaning of winning a first prize in a music competition? It means superiority, but it means also that the winner has been more able than the other competitors to acquire the certain guidelines. Thus, Pekka Kuusisto won also because he had the capacity to conform to the unwritten guidelines for playing violin within Western culture. Winning a prize in an international competition can be counted as a signal of internationalization of Finnishness, as an absorption into a grand, integrated culture.

This text differs from the other articles dealing with the 1995 Sibelius Competition in its explicit reference to the Westernness of the music played in the competition. The last sentence, which discusses the internationalization of Finnishness and Finland’s absorption into a grand, integrated culture, is significant in relation to the universalizing tendencies within Western culture and Western classical music. In the context of the quote, internationalization seems to be defined specifically to describe dealings with Western countries. Moreover, the article indicates that absorption of international culture occurs within Western cultures.

Finland’s relation to Western cultures and Whiteness is problematic. Historically, Finnishness has not self-evidently been a part of White Western culture. In the 19th century, much research linked Finns with controversial Altaic-speaking peoples such as Mongolians:

Originally it was assumed that as the Finnish language was related to Sámi – spoken by tribes perceived as Mongolian in origin – and as many Finns supposedly look ‘Eastern’, therefore Finns were ‘Mongoloid’. This view remained relatively unchallenged until the beginning of the twentieth century. Since that point, and particularly since the 1990s, it has been increasingly argued that Finns should be seen as ‘European’ but with a stronger ‘Eastern’ influence than many other Europeans. (Dutton, 2008: 171)

As historian Elena Dragomir (2009: 37–38) shows, many Finnish scholars questioned the Finns’ Eastern genetic origins during the 1990s. Dragomir uses the term ‘Westernizing narrative’ to describe ‘a set of ideas and beliefs according to which Finland has always been European and Western’. In the above cited article, Juhani Koivisto interpreted Pekka Kuusisto’s achievement to integrate Finland into European culture.

In Western classical music, the integration process presumes complying with the ‘unwritten guidelines’ of Western culture, and hence it is not possible to bring something new to this already existing, albeit indefinable culture. From the perspective of Finnish media, the urge to Other the Asian violinists was connected to the uncertainty of Finnish ethnic and racial identity and the desire to be integrated into Western and European cultures. This uncertainty and desire helped construct the media’s racial differentiation when describing Asian and Western violinists in the Sibelius Competition.

Education

During the Sibelius Violin Competition, the Finnish media paid rather a lot of attention to the backgrounds of the musicians, including the educational institutions at which they studied and their prior and current teachers. In classical music culture, the lineage of a musician’s teachers is an integral component of a musician’s identity (Cottrell, 2004: 39–42; Kingsbury, 1988: 46; Nettl, 1995: 68–70), although scholars in music education have recently challenged the efficacy of the apprenticeship tradition (see Westerlund, 2006: 120). Still, the apprenticeship tradition seemed to be highly regarded by the Finnish media coverage of the Sibelius Competition: the programme booklet of the competition printed the most important schools and teachers of all the competitors.

The media were especially interested in the training of the non-Western violinists in the Sibelius Competition and often expressed the superiority of Western educational institutions and teachers. In the Finnish national broadcasting company’s radio programme Yleisradio (1995a), journalists Eeva Hirvensalo and Outi Paananen made the following comments after the Japanese violinist Yuka Akamatsu had performed in the first round of the competition:

The Asian teachers of the Asian violinists were only very seldom mentioned in the Finnish Media during the competition. Thus, the above cited excerpt is exceptional. The content of the talk concerning Tomotada Soh is limited to the argumentation on his European-ness. Nonetheless, it is clear on the grounds of this conversation that it is important for a violinist to play music in this competition ‘according to the European standards’.

The difference between European and Japanese music education was further discussed in the conversation between journalist Anu Karlsson and violinist Yuka Egutchi on the radio (Yleisradio, 1995b). This conversation was broadcast during the second round of the competition:

In this interview, Egutchi and Karlsson mention a ‘piano teacher at the school’. This teacher does not qualify as a good teacher in Western art music culture, since the most important and self-evident qualification for a teacher is that he or she is specialized in the instrument he or she is teaching. The Suzuki method is represented in this interview as a possible starting point for studying to play violin. However, Karlsson explains that Egutchi moved over to ‘great’ music, an attribute which in the excerpt refers to Western educational methods, after beginning with the Suzuki repertoire.

Like many of the Asian competitors in the Sibelius Competition, Egutchi continued her music studies in the West. Within Western art music education, an individual teacher teaches his or her students to be individualistic, whereas within the Suzuki method, the tuition is given in groups. The non-individualistic aspect of the Suzuki method, which is often emphasized in the representations of the Suzuki Method in the West (Yoshihara, 2007: 43–44), is also present in Egutchi’s talk. She does not call her teachers by name in the interview, but refers to them as ‘they’. Ethnomusicologist Henry Kingsbury (1988: 39–40) has noticed that the Suzuki Method is considered to be a threat to Western music education because of its reduction of emphasis on individualism. The importance of individuality in Western music education was expressed also by violinist Elina Vähälä, who told Suominen (1995) that the Kuhmo Violin School ⁹ was important for her musical education because of its ‘excellent teachers, especially from Russia, where music education gets off the ground from individuals. In Russia, the students are never left alone. On the contrary, they are under the wings of their teachers’.

According to the Finnish media, the most favourable places to study Western classical music are Europe and the United States. Their statements indicate the belief that it is imperative for a violinist to study in at least one of these two places to become a skilled and talented musician. We see indications of this train of thought in the following excerpts:

It’s a good thing that the musicians from the Far East are trimmed either in the United States or in Europe. Because of this, we heard mostly tuned and relaxed, virtuoso-like playing.

Eiko Tanaka from Japan was excellent in Tapio Nevanlinna’s recent, obligatory work ‘Yli kirkkaan’. She succeeded in getting the tones out from her violin easily and she attained the spirit of Sibelius’s Humoresques.

This applies to the South Korean Ju-Young Baek as well, whose teacher is Aaron Rosand. The sonata of Brahms was the liveliest in the competition. Too bad she was as non-charismatic as the rest of the virtuosos from the Far East.

…

Japan is represented [in the finals] only by strong-willed Madoka Sato, who should be given a special prize for her interpretation of Nevanlinna’s work. Behind her sulky face while playing the violin, there is an excellent designer and a grand style technique, which would get a finishing touch overseas. (Lempinen, 1995)

The idea that a connection with perceived tradition can be established through one’s teachers is an essential feature in classical music culture (Cottrell, 2004: 40). Ethnomusicologist Bruno Nettl (1995: 69) describes that the vita of a musician, teacher, or student emphasizes a listing of with whom that person has studied; the teacher is thus a major qualification. This genealogy is also often presented in programme notes. In the media coverage of the 1995 Sibelius Competition, the lineages of teachers were not judged according to their skill, accomplishments and fame, but also in terms of their raciality and ethnicity. The Asian musicians of the Sibelius Competition had to be ‘trimmed’ in the United States or Europe to be considered competitive; it was proposed that weak competitors would benefit from a ‘finishing touch’ for their education in the West.

Musical interpretation

According to the Finnish media, the violinists from the Far East may, even after studying with Western teachers, lack an essential element of their musicianship. When Asian musicians have attained skills and artistry in the course of their Western education, the result of the education can be interpreted to be a superficial and detached playing style that lacks musicality:

Ju-Young Baek’s playing was virile and full-blooded; her playing actually emanated relaxed strength. However, listeners were left with an odd feeling; perhaps the spiritual energy originated from a good teacher. No doubt, Ju-Young Baek is an excellently trained violinist. Perhaps Baek’s own willpower as a soloist will come out in the finals of the competition. (Nevamäki-Karri, 1995)

Since the Romantic period, classical music has embraced the idea that music must spring from the musician’s self. Although a good violinist has to be trained in the right place by the right teachers, excellent musical performance can only occur when it springs from the musician’s inspiration. Ju-Young Baek was a student of a jury member of the Sibelius Competition, American violinist Aaron Rosand. Because of this, the media (Lempinen, 1995) emphasized that Ju-Young is an Asian violinist who was ‘trimmed’ in the West. Despite the assumption that violinists from the Far East must study in Europe or the United States to achieve prominence, the excellence of their playing does not result only from education. The idea that personal inspiration is a necessity for good performance allowed commentators to align poor performance with ethnicity.

Like the Asian violinists, the Finnish musicians were described by the Finnish media as being unable to learn what is necessary to be skilful musicians in a global competition. The media also held that Finns must study abroad to play the violin truly well. The following quotation is from Pekka Kuusisto’s discussion of his studies in Finland with Tuomas Haapanen and in the United States with Mirian Fried and Paul:

I learned the technique from Tuomas … but Fried and Biss gave me a deeper understanding of music – how one can go deeply into it and work for it. I wanted to go further in my musicianship and not only into shallow playing of the violin. (Törn, 1995)

However, according to the Finnish media coverage of the Sibelius Competition, there is a significant difference between the Asian and the Finnish violinists. The Asians do not, even after studying abroad, learn to play well, whereas the Finns are able to succeed in this. The White and non-White violinists are differently competent concerning their capability to absorb ways of playing that does not stem from their cultures. These insights are put into words by the radio journalists Outi Paananen and Eeva Hirvensalo in the following two excerpts:

Outi Paananen connects the negative qualities of Xiang Gao’s playing with his race and ethnicity. Likewise, the audience’s interpretation is justified, as stereotypes of Finns often show them to be gloomy and rigorous. Racial and ethnic aspects justify the White journalists’ dislike of the Asian violinist’s musical interpretation of the piece. In the second excerpt, the ‘southern’ way of playing, which is not an intrinsic element of Finnish ethnicity, is described as attainable for a Finnish musician, and the journalists notice and appreciate the musician’s ability to embody the style. Furthermore, the journalists do not announce the difference between the musician, Pekka Kuusisto, and themselves. Thus, we see that a White musician has a wider freedom of action and freedom of choice than those musicians representing non-White ethnicities and races.

A local newspaper, Keski-Uusimaa (1995), ¹⁰ described the competitors’ excursion to Ainola, the home of Jean Sibelius and his family (Vasantola, 1995). The article focused on two violinists in particular: Marta Kirk from the United States and Yuna Sato from Japan. Neither Kirk nor Sato qualified for the second round of the competition:

The exclusion from the second and final round of the competition was hard for Kirk, because in five years, when the next competition will take place, she will be too old to take part in the competition. Now she is confronted with heavy practicing. Besides her work as a violin teacher, she is planning to continue taking part in European violin competitions.

Maybe I have to learn to be wilder. I play technically quite well, but the jury’s feedback is almost always the same: I should express my feelings more. I feel very strongly while playing, but I prefer not to show everything to the audience.

I attended in order to listen.

For Yuna Sato from Japan, the competition meant a possibility to learn. Her main goal was to listen to other competitors’ performances, which helped her even more in planning her practicing than the comments she got from the jury.

In the future, I have to concentrate on style and how I could express the characteristics of different composers to attain their individual styles.

The difference between the East and West is represented in this text, first, in relation to the technical aspects of playing and, second, in relation to the musician’s ability for self-expression. According to the Finnish media, the technical skills of Marta Kirk differ from the technical skills of Asian violinists, whereas the technical aspects in Kirk’s playing are not interlinked with her ethnicity or race. The only weakness in her playing is that she is not able to express the feelings she claims to already have. Yuna Sato situates the significance of music outside of herself and locates it in the composer, while Marta Kirk is described as a technically skilled musician who says she is not able to express her feelings enough in performance. According to the above cited text, Sato seeks to obtain the desired features into her playing from outside of herself, whereas Kirk acknowledges herself to have the wanted features within herself.

The media described the relationship between technical skills and self-expression differently depending on whether the musician was Asian or Western. Radoslaw Szulc was described as ‘an excellent and humorous violinist. He knows how to deal with nuances. After studying in London, Hannover and Amsterdam, he is slightly more advanced in musicality than in technique’ (Lempinen, 1995). For a Western violinist, studying in Europe can result in the faster development of musicality over technique. Even if Szulc was not technically faultless, he was acknowledged to be musical, which is considered to be among the most valued qualities within Western art music culture. For Asian musicians in the Sibelius Competition, it was almost impossible to attain the most valuable qualities of Western art music, despite their excellent technical qualities.

Conclusion

In the Finnish media, the competitors of the Sibelius Violin Competition were categorized as more or less welcome in terms of their nationality, ethnicity and race. Japanese female violinists were Othered primarily in terms of ethnicity and race and secondly in terms of gender. The Othering of both women and non-Westerners has a long tradition in Western art music. Correspondingly, Western art music itself was constructed in these texts as normative, and its cultural and historical specificity was obscured. The competitors’ performances were often evaluated by the competitors’ strengths and weaknesses in terms of skill and interpretation. It was suggested that there was a significant imbalance in the Asian competitors between their excellent technical skills on the one hand and their weak interpretative ability on the other. For a good musician, technique is merely the means towards the achievement of the higher goal of interpretation. Since the Asian competitors, however technically brilliant, were seen as lacking in interpretative ability, their performances could not meet the standard of ‘true’ art. Their presumed rejection of individuality and interpretation excluded them from gaining elite status among the great interpreters of Western art music.

In the Finnish media, race and ethnicity were highly emphasized in the construction of the musicians’ identities. In relation to these representations, Yoshihara (2007: 88) points out an apparent contradiction in Western classical music culture. On the one hand, the Romantic myth stemming from the 19th century (Dahlhaus, 1989: 35–41) has established classical music to be perceived as a universal language that transcends race, nationality, gender and other categories of difference. On the other hand, classical music is also ‘the very arena in which these musicians experience the meaning of their Asian identity in America’s racialized society’. This contradiction is present also in the media coverage of the Sibelius Violin Competition. The discourse of classical music did not transcend race, nationality and ethnicity in the media. Rather, racial, national and ethnic differences were constitutive in the formation of the violinists’ identities.

Teun A. van Dijk (1993) emphasizes everyday racism in his work, focusing specifically on the role of elites in the reproduction of racism. He has demonstrated that elites play a primary role in the reproduction of ethnic dominance, inequality and racism in Western societies. Elite discourses, produced by media, educators and scholars, play an essential role in the production, reproduction, expression and justification of racism. van Dijk shows that the White elites, regardless of their meticulously built images as liberal citizens and leaders, are an essential constituent of the problem of racism. Everyday racism consists of negative opinions, attitudes, ideologies and subtle acts and circumstances that oppress ethnic and racial minorities. It contributes to the hegemonic status of White people and the devalued status of minorities. The media coverage of the Sibelius Violin Competition exhibited cultural racism, which does not necessarily assert biological superiority or inferiority (see Miles and Brown, 2003). Furthermore, the Finnish media exhibited everyday racism in its rare explicit references to racial or ethnic differences. When the racialized estimations were expressed explicitly in the media, their connections with ethnicity or race were not articulated. The racism in these texts becomes evident only by reading them critically and carefully.

The Nordic welfare state model, which is at work in Finland, ‘is based on the principles of egalitarianism and universality, in which the unquestioned norm, however, is the majority perspective’ (Keskinen, 2009: 269). This model is connected to the understanding that the colonial ties of these countries and the legacies of racism are usually regarded to be weak (Mulinari et al., 2009: 1; Vuolajärvi, 2014: 269). Since the 1970s in Finland and in the other Nordic countries (Hervik, 2004: 149), the concept of race has been avoided, especially in authoritative discourses and even in fields of research (Rastas, 2005: 82). From the 1990s, scholars have contested the weakness of racism and colonialism of these countries within postcolonial and racism studies.

In the 1995 Sibelius Competition, the situation regarding race and ethnicity was highly contradictory. On the one hand, the media avoided explicitly mentioning concepts of race and ethnicity. On the other hand, these concepts were certainly present in the media texts, which categorized participants and their educational backgrounds. Most of the journalists who produced the media texts on the 1995 Sibelius Competition were educated in a Finnish school system where, until the 1960s, racist prejudices were present in the representations of nations and cultures. In the 1990s, increased immigration and internationalization forced Finnish society to encounter their underlying issues of race and ethnicity. The Finnish media lacked self-criticism in their dealing with issues of race and ethnicity in the context of the 1995 Sibelius Competition. This led to a discrepancy between not mentioning the concepts of race and ethnicity, but nevertheless dealing with the contestants implicitly in a racist way.