In July 2014, we met at a birthday party where we tried to sing leelo together. We had bought the CD “Verska naase” and tried singing along to “Põllulaul” and “Hällülaul”. Our main motivator is the joy of singing together and discussing world affairs. Our umbrella organisation is the Põlva Seto Society. All five choir members are active members of society: Ingrid is a private entrepreneur, Anne and Merle are teachers at Põlva Art School, Svetlana is a kindergarten teacher and Kati works in the field of cultural development. Svetlana’s family comes directly from Setomaa and Anne, Merle and Ingrid have Seto roots while Kati is from Ida-Virumaa. Together with the members of the society, we celebrate most of the important holidays in the Seto calendar (Christmas, Eastern, Pentecost, etc.). The annual Seto Kingdom Day and St Mary’s Day, are also important for us. Every year we celebrate Finno-Ugric Day. Our choir’s name comes from a plant - Värvmadar (Northern Bedstraw) and it was traditionally used for dying the yarn into the right shade of the “Seto red”. Hence the name Madara’ or madarad. We have collected our songs by listening to other choirs and memorizing the melodies. We have also gained the courage to make lyrics ourselves. We’ve tried to keep our repertoire varied and we are happy when our songs fit together. We have participated in various projects and singing competitions. We usually meet once every two weeks to learn leelo, but more frequently before important performances. In 2018 we were selected as the best leelochoir of the Seto Kingdom.