Pekka Kuusisto is one of the most famous and diverse musicians of the present day. Critics of several countries have commented on the spontaneity and freshness of his play and the novelty in his readings of highly familiar works.
Pekka Kuusisto was born in 1976. He represents a renowned Finnish musical dynasty – his grandfather Taneli Kuusisto, his father Ilkka Kuusisto and his brother Jaakko Kuusisto are acclaimed composers. Pekka Kuusisto began to play the violin at the age of three. His first teacher was Géza Szilvay at the East Helsinki Institute of Music. From 1983–1992 Pekka Kuusisto studied at the Jean Sibelius Academy in Helsinki (from 1985 under Tuomas Haapanen), while from 1992–1996 he studied under Miriam Fried and Paul Biss at the Indiana University School of Music (USA).
In 1992 Pekka Kuusisto won 3rd place at the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition in Odense (Denmark). In 1995 he became the first Finnish violinist to win the Jean Sibelius Competition in Helsinki – one of the most prestigious violin competitions in the world. At this competition he won the Special Prize for the best performance of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto. The violinist has also won several other awards.
Today, Pekka Kuusisto actively performs in concert in Finland and abroad. He has appeared with the finest Finnish orchestras and with many leading European and world ensembles, among them the Toronto and Oslo Symphony Orchestras, the Australian, Munich, London, Irish and Scottish Chamber Orchestras and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta to name but a few. Since 2006 he has been artist-in-residence with the Tapiola Sinfonietta chamber orchestra. In several ensembles Pekka Kuusisto heads the violin section and regularly performs with them as a soloist.
Pekka Kuusisto has conducted the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. He also regularly appears as a conductor with the Australian and Irish Chamber Orchestras at the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Pekka Kuusisto’s repertoire places significant focus on the works of contemporary composers and 20th century classics including violin concerti by Thomas Adès, Henri Dutilleux, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Magnus Lindberg and Richard Rijnvos in addition to works by Barber, Britten and Stravinsky. In December 2010 Pekka Kuusisto and the Tapiola Sinfonietta orchestra performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto using the original manuscript score.
Pekka Kuusisto participates in and is the Artistic Director of numerous festivals, among them the Tuusula Chamber Music Festival (together with his brother Jaakko Kuusisto), the Avanti! festival, concert series in Hämeenlinna and various festivals in Australia, Great Britain and The Netherlands.
For more than ten years Pekka Kuusisto has recorded on the Ondine label. Together with Ondine he has recorded music by Bach, Mozart, Prokofiev, Sibelius and Taneyev. The musician’s most recent recordings include chosen works for violin and guitar by Paganini, Magnus Lindberg’s Violin Concerto, a solo disc of works by Einojuhani Rautavaara (with pianist Paavali Jumppanen), two discs with works by Sibelius for violin and piano and for violin and orchestra and a disc of jazz improvisations.
The musician has a keen interest in jazz, folklore, ethnic and electronic music. His projects have included appearances with the jazz trio Töykeät, the electro-jazz group RinneRadio (particularly in 2005 at the Herbie Hancock Festival at the Barbican Centre), the noise duet Fe-Mail, the power metal band Nightwish, the Austrian multi-percussionist Martin Grubinger and Finnish accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen.
The musician has also worked on several projects in multimedia and for documentary films.
According to Pekka Kuusisto, “performing folklore, jazz, electronic and classical music and improvisations really gives you a special relationship with the violin. It seems to me that the violin does not need to be controlled: if you want to play freely you have to feel like the folk musicians I admire so much. They couldn’t play a Sibelius concerto even though their lives depended on it, but they are the happiest of all musicians that I know.”
The musician performs a 1752 violin crafted by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini generously provided by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
| user_name | | Exit |
