Pekka Kuusisto
violin

Pekka Kuusisto was born in Espoo, Finland in 1976 and began to study the violin at the age of three. His first teacher at the East Helsinki Music Institue was Gèza Szilvay. In 1983, Pekka Kuusisto enrolled at the Sibelius Academy where he studied with Professor Tuomas Haapanen. From 1992-96, he studied at the Indiana University School of Music with professors Miriam Fried and Paul Biss.

In November 1995, Pekka Kuusisto became the first Finnish violinist to win the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition in Helsinki and was additionally awarded the special prize for the best performance of the Sibelius Concerto. Past competition successes have also included third prize at the Carl Nielsen Competition in Denmark in 1992, and first prize at the national Kuopio Violin Competition in Finland in 1995.

Mr. Kuusisto has performed with the Finnish Radio Symphony and the Helsinki Philharmonic, with which he toured to Japan in 1996; the Royal Philharmonic and Yuri Temirkanov on tour in Italy; BBC Symphony with Paavo Berglund; the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Leif Segerstam at the Hollywood Bowl; the Deutsches Symphonie -Orchester Berlin and the Czech Philharmonic with Vladimir Ashkenazy.

With his regular duo partner Raija Kerppo, he has given debut recitals in Bergen, London, Paris, Ravinia, Bremen and Sydney, as well as throughout Finland, and has performed with pianist Olli Mustonen at Lincoln Center in New York, and with cellist Steven Isserlis in chamber concerts at the City of London Festival.  Each summer, Mr. Kuusisto creates his own program of events at Finland’s Lake Tuusula Chamber Music Festival, of which he is Artistic Director.

Pekka Kuusisto's highly acclaimed recording of the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Helsinki Philharmonic conducted by Leif Segerstam was released in 1996; his recital CD, “Strings Attached,” was released in 1997. He records for Ondine label exclusively.

Pekka Kuusisto plays a Giovanni Battista Guadagnini violin of 1752 kindly loaned by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.