ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 25, 1996 TAG: 9608230105
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEWPORT
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
He wishes the snow would last a little longer. And he'd like to meet another musician or two.
But all things considered, Ake-Eric Renqvist - a former violist with the Helsinki Philharmonic - has adapted to Giles County pretty well.
"I find things very nice here," said Renqvist (who pronounces his first name ``Oh-kay'').
The violist, 64, moved here following his retirement a year ago, after living the first six decades of his life in Finland.
He moved to the Newport community at the urging of his wife, Helen. The former Helen Farrier, she is a Newport native who moved to Finland after graduating from Emory & Henry College in 1971.
They are living on a generations-old family farm with their 10-year-old son, Robbi.
"I'm just a local come home," Helen Renqvist said.
The same could not be said about her husband.
Ake Renqvist comes from a land of frigid winters. Of summer nights when the sun never sets.
He speaks of a Finnish wilderness where it is not uncommon to see a moose walk past one's cabin window.
He is the proverbial fish out of water - a musician and a teacher whose ex-students play in some of Europe's best orchestras. He pines for Berlioz and Sibelius, in an area that favors Travis and Wynonna.
And yet he likes it here.
So content is he, in fact, that on a trip to Finland a few weeks ago, Renqvist wound up missing Newport.
"I'm not missing Finland any more," he said.
He even likes the summer heat.
"We have not enough sun in Finland," said Renqvist - who speaks five languages. "Summer time is excellent."
|n n| Finns are famously tight-lipped. They do not make chit-chat. A joke told by Finns in one town about Finns in another is that, when you ask them a question, they will think it over - and answer in a day or two.
Renqvist finds America refreshing.
"It's so easy to talk with American people. Easier than with Finnish people. They like to have a little bit more distance. ... Americans are friendly."
Too friendly?
"Not too friendly. But enough friendly."
Helen Renqvist, on the other hand, found in the Finns a kindred spirit. Ake is her second husband - her first, also a Finn, is deceased.
"I'm an outdoor person," she explained. "I'm also a quiet person. The Finns as a whole are quieter people, and very close to nature. And that suited my personality to a `T.'''
Though the truth be told, Finland and Giles County have a lot in common.
Both are heavily forested, with abundant wildlife.
Both have lots of water - Giles County has the New River, Finland approximately 55,000 lakes.
And there are at least two people - namely Helen and Ake-Eric Renqvist - who have lived in both.
There are differences, too, of course. Different languages. Different histories - Finland's dates back several thousand years.
Different neighbors. Giles County does not, like Finland, border Sweden, Norway, or the Baltic Sea.
A third of Finland lies above the Arctic Circle.
Then there are the trees.
"Some kinds of trees I don't find here," said Renqvist, whose native forests include aspen, alder and the dwarf Arctic birch.
Fauna in Finland, meanwhile, include not only moose but reindeer. Neither is plentiful in Giles County.
And then there is winter, when even the sun in Finland gives up the game and heads for warmer weather.
"We can't see any sun in the middle of winter," Renqvist said.
If Giles County can get cold, Finland can get colder. Temperatures may fall to more than minus 20 in the wintertime. In the higher latitudes, the snow on the northern slopes of the hills never melts.
And Finland runs to about 130,000 square miles - roughly three times the size of Virginia - and contains 5 million people - roughly the same as Virginia, though considerably more than Newport. A tiny community spread along an S-curve on Virginia 42, Newport is about eight miles from Blacksburg across the Montgomery/Giles county line, somewhere between Virginia Tech and 4,200-foot Bald Knob.
Finland has 15 symphony orchestras.
Giles County has none.
It does, however, have Renqvist - who is giving violin and viola lessons in the newly renovated Newport Recreation Center.
Although Renqvist is officially retired, a lifetime in music does not stop so easily, his wife explained. "He - for more reasons than one - needs to work."
Renqvist has not met many area musicians yet, which he regrets. He could use a few more students, too (he has six).
He could also use more snow.
A veteran cross-country skier, Renqvist is used to snow coming early in the season and staying late.
His first Virginia winter - our several feet of snow notwithstanding - left him pining for a little Arctic weather.
"Snow was so soft. It gets mushy very quickly," he explained. "Not like Finland. When we have the first snow, it stays there. The second snow comes like that," he said, putting one hand atop the other.
Such snow is much better for skiing, Renqvist said.
Renqvist also misses winter saunas - a ritual in which, he explained, one sweats naked in a steam room, and then walks (still naked) through snow to the nearest lake.
"And then jump in," said Renqvist. "And then again to sauna."
Given that the lakes in Finland are usually covered with a foot or two of ice in winter time, a man-sized hole must be cut out beforehand, Renqvist said.
He is helping one of his wife's relatives build a sauna in Giles County - where, at least, he shouldn't have to worry about the ice.
American musical tastes, meanwhile, bewilder Renqvist. The violist chafes at the Muzak-style background music - "factory music" he calls it - that plays endlessly in American stores, offices and on the telephone. "Noise pollution," he calls it.
As for country music, the violist is a purist. He doesn't like electric instruments.
But of mountain music - the timeless kind, made on summer porches or around a winter stove, with banjos, guitars and dobros - Renqvist is of a different mind.
"I like to hear some of this when it's good," he said. "It's really -."
Renqvist, at a loss for words, lays a hand upon his chest, his heart.
Where his home is.
LENGTH: Long : 133 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. 1. Ake-Eric Renqvist retired to Newportby CNBlast year with his Giles County-born wife, Helen, and their son
Robbi, after a distinguished
musical career in Finland. 2. Renqvist, pictured with his family at
their farm, says he doesn't miss Finland anymore. color. 3. Courtesy
of Ake-Eric Renqvist. Renqvist as a conductor, in 1987.