Guest Artist Bio
Pekka Kuusisto
Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto is one of the most versatile and distinctive musicians working today. Always demonstrating his extraordinary individuality and imagination, Kuusisto is unusually free and fluid in his approach and has been acclaimed for the spontaneity and freshness in his playing.
In 1995, Kuusisto became the first Finn to win the Sibelius Violin Competition. He became Artist in Residence at the Tapiola Sinfonietta in September 2006, a post he took up along with pianist Olli Mustonen and conductor Stefan Asbury.
Setting Pekka apart from most other violinists of his generation is his desire and ability to improvise and his love of playing many different styles of music. In 2005, Pekka performed at the Barbican with the Finnish electronic jazz group Rinneradio as part of Herbie Hancock’s festival. He appeared last season in Dublin with Irish accordionist Dermot Dunne and also played at the St. Olav Festival in Trondheim. This season, he appears at de Singel in Antwerp with his Finnish folk group the Luomu Players, and performs jazz with members of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra while visiting for performances of the Sibelius Violin Concerto.
Pekka is seen increasingly directing ensembles from the violin, and has excelled at this role with the London, Scottish and Irish chamber orchestras, the Britten Sinfonia and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, all of whom have re-invited him. This season Pekka will direct the Chamber Orchestra of Europe on a European tour.
Pekka returns to the Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival this season, and will perform with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. In Europe, highlights of the season include a performance of the Nielsen Violin Concerto with the Bern Symphony Orchestra, and of Paganini’s Violin Concerto No.1 with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, as well as concerts with the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra.
The present season also sees the continuation of one of Pekka’s most important collaborations: concerts with mezzo-soprano Anne-Sofie von Otter and pianist Bengt Forsberg at London’s South Bank and in Brussels.
Kuusisto undertakes a recital tour of Australia this season for Musica Viva, will take part in a chamber music concert at the Wigmore Hall, and will undertake a recital tour of Japan for the Musashino Foundation with Finnish accordionist Janne Rättyä. Each summer, Pekka creates his own programme of events at Finland’s Lake Tuusula Chamber Music Festival, of which he is Artistic Director.
Pekka’s most recent CD releases are two highly-acclaimed discs of works by Sibelius, of whom Pekka is a leading exponent: a disc of works for violin and piano, which he recorded in the composer’s country home with Heini Kärkkäinen; and a recording of works for violin and orchestra, with the Tapiola Sinfonietta. Pekka also features in 4, a DVD documentary about Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, in which he presents Winter, set in the snowscapes of Lapland.
Pekka Kuusisto plays a Giovanni Baptista Guadagnini violin of 1752 kindly loaned by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.