Girilal Baars is a composer and singer and musician primarily working with experimental contemporary music and very old vocal folk music (www.girilal.com). Born in Russia, of Dutch and Indian parents, he has lived in Uppsala, Sweden for many, many years. Possibly as a result of being multilingual (English, Russian and Swedish) he is very interested in languages and particularly in how languages relate to each other.
During his residency with Platform in Vaasa, he is hoping to create a sound-installation based around the points of contact between Finnish and Finnish-Swedish. Anyone who has anecdotes, ideas, friends, words, relatives or sounds that relate to both of these spoken languages — addressing the similarities, rather than the differences — is very much encouraged to contact him through email (guru@girilal.com) or by phone (+358-41-5604077).