BIOGRAPHY

Accordion trio Fratres was formed in 1994 by Raimo Vertainen, Heikki Jokiaho and Toni Hämäläinen. All three are graduates of the Conservatory of Central Finland where they studied under Vladimir Dolgopolov and Alpo Pohja among others.

In October 1994 Fratres made their international breakthrough by gaining 1st place in the chamber ensemble series at the prestigious Citta di Castelfidardo competition in Italy. This achievement led to invitations to perform in venues all over Europe. Fratres have since conquered Scandinavia and have enjoyed great success in Japan , Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Russia and Estonia.

In the spring of 2001 Fratres toured Japan and performed in the world renowned Musashino Civic Hall Tokyo. They were also invited to perform at the Donaufestival in Krems where their concert was broadcast by the Austrian National Radio (ORF). The trio returned to Finland and lit up the Kuhmo chamber music festival for the second time where they held four performances which included two world premieres!

In 2002 FRATRES decided to expand so Jukka Räikköinen swapped his double bass that he played in the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra for position of lead singer. To further enhance the rock sound Fratres wanted to create two" dinosaurs " of the Finnish music scene Miri Miettinen (drums) and Masa Maijanen (bass) joined the band. The two "old timers" have a long and distinguished history as a rhythm section and on this album both got into the groove BIG TIME! Miri explains: "Heikki called me one day and asked me to play some drums on an album that had accordions and some vocal tracks on them. I said WHAT?! He sent me the material and I recorded the drumtracks in my Soundfactory studios Lohja. The guys were happy and excited with the result that I ended up mixing and co-producing the album". To be honest I have to tell you that Masa played the bass tracks the night before the mastering of this album and as you can hear gave his all in that hard to remember whiskie flavoured session,"john jameson and sons since 1780".

In February 2006 Fratres performed at the Het Accordion Festival in Deventer, Holland and in July 2006 were the main support act for Whitesnake in Helsinkis Ice Hockey Stadium. On the back of these hugely succsessful gigs Fratres were offered and signed a distribution deal with Fg-Naxos Finland.

During the performance of Deep Purples Black Night "which was incendently the first song of the set" it was obivious to the band members that something special was happening,as Masa fondly remembers, " The audiance knew the song but,never performed this way,i could see their reaction and could read their lips without passing the FBI lip reading course: What the f*** is THIS????????????