Arja Kastinen (b. 1963) is a kantele player from Finland. She was the first Finnish folk musician to take the Doctor of Music examination in the artistic study programme at the Sibelius Academy in December 2000. What inspired her to do this was the ancient Karelian kantele improvisation. The examination included five concerts and a written dissertation.

In her music, Kastinen mixes the old and new playing techniques presenting the versatile timbres and acoustic properties of the kantele. After the examination Arja has continued the research about meditative kantele improvisation. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.