Kimito Island Music Festival Artists 2018

Katinka Korkeala

Katinka Korkeala studied violin at the Sibelius Academy under Ari Angervo, Tuomas Haapanen and Igor Bezrodny. She has attended master classes of Yehudi Menuhin, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Ana Chumachenko. In 1999 she was awarded Master of Music degree at Sibelius Academy, and she gave a well-received recital in Helsinki. Korkeala has given numerous concerts, both as a chamber musician, and as a soloist; with orchestras like Tapiola Sinfonietta, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Vox Artis Chamber Orchestra, and City Orchestras in Oulu, Jyväskylä, Pori, Mikkeli and Hämeenlinna. She has performed in Austria, Germany, France, Iceland, Italy, Russia and Switzerland.

Katinka Korkeala won the 1st prize for duos, together with her twin sister Sonja, in Concertino Praga Competition in 1984. She played 1st violin in Tapiola Sinfonietta from 1992 to 1994 and as the leader in Kouvola City orchestra in 1995. From 1999 to 2003 she taught violin at Tampere Conservatory, and after that taught at Stadia. Nowadays Korkeala acts as a freelance musician.

Katinka Korkeala founded the Kimito Island Music Festival in 1999 together with her husband, pianist Martti Rautio. They acted together as the artistic directors for 9 years. Since autumn 2007 she has continued in this position with her twin sister Sonja Korkeala.

Sonja Korkeala

Sonja Korkeala was born in Finland. She is a violinist, professor for violin at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, Primaria of the Rodin-Quartett. Since 2007 Sonja Korkeala is artistic director of the Kimito Island Music Festival, in cooperation with her twin sister Katinka Korkeala, who founded the festival in 1999.

She studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with Ari Angervo and Prof. Tuomas Haapanen and at the Liszt Academy in Budapest with Maria Vermes. Sonja Korkeala continued her studies with professor Ana Chumachenco at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, where she finished her studies with the masterclass degree. She won several prizes, among others at Concertino Praga 1984, 1985 in Kuopio (Finland), 1988 in Gorizia (Italy) and 1991 at the "Konzertgesellschaft" in Munich.

Since 1993 Sonja Korkeala is first violinist of the Rodin string quartet, which has its own concert series in the Max-Joseph-Saal at the Munich Residenz since 1997. The Rodin-Quartett recorded many CDs with the Amati Records.

Sonja Korkeala has performed at numerous festivals, e.g. Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, Savonlinna Opera Festival, Amiata Piano Festival and she has collaborated with musicians among others András Adorján, Adrian Brendel, Eduard Brunner, Ana Chumachenco, Christoph Hartmann, Helena Juntunen, Sharon Kam, Radu Lupu, Siegfried Palm, Alfredo Perl, Christoph Richter, Hariolf Schlichtig, Ingolf Turban, Jörg Widmann, Marko Ylönen and Wen Xiao Zheng.

In 1994 she became assistant teacher of Prof. Ana Chumchenco at the "University of Music and Performing Arts Munich", then since 2000 she has taught her own class at the same institute. Since 2011 she is professor at the "University of Music and Performing Arts Munich". She made a name for herself as teacher of highly giftet young violinists. Her pupils included Julia Fischer, Arabella Steinbacher, Lena Neudauer, Mariella Haubs, Daniel Röhn, Veronika Eberle and many others.

Sonja Korkeala's websites »»

Johanna Rusanen

Johanna Rusanen

Ralf Gothóni

Ralf Gothóni has a many-sided career as solo pianist, chamber musician and conductor all over the world. He became well-known for his unconventional way of music-making, not only as a pianist, but as a musician with unusual thinking about music and the wholeness of musicianship. Gothóni is regularly heard as guest artist at major chamber music festivals. He performs with world-class orchestras and appears annually in numerous concerts both as soloist and conductor, conducting from the keyboard.

Gothóni has premiered more than a dozen piano concertos; among them concertos by Sir John Tavener, Aulis Sallinen, Curtis Curtis-Smith, Einojuhani Rautavaara and Srul Irving Glick. He has recorded over 100 albums for several labels, including BIS, CPO, Decca, DGG, EMI and Ondine, with whom he produced more than twenty CDs in 90ths.

Ralf Gothóni was the principal conductor’ of the legendary English Chamber Orchestra during 2000-09, during 2001–06 he held the music director position of the Northwest Chamber Ochestra, Seattle and in 2004 he was nominated the guest conductor of Deutsche Kammerakademie.

Gothóni was in 1996 and 1998 the iniator and the artistic director of the “Forbidden City Music Festival” in Beijing and in 2004 he started a cultural collaboration between Finland and Egypt which is continuing yearly as a “Musical Bridge Egypt-Finland", where his northern colleagues perform with Egyptian musicians. In 2011 Gothóni startet a simpler Bridge also with Azerbaijan and in 2015 with Jordan. He has supported classical music also in Israel and in South Africa.

Very close to his heart is the contact with young musicians. He is the artistic chairman of “Savonlinna Music Academy” which is a Summer institute for chamber music, lied and opera. He has held the position of professorship at the “Hochschule für Musik” in Hamburg (1986–96), at the “Hanns Eisler Hochschule” in Berlin (1996–2000), at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki 1992–2007. In May, 2000 he was appointed as a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music in London and in 2012 in Musikhochschule Karlsruhe. From 2006 to 2013 he was the head of the piano chamber music department at “Instituto de Musica Camara, Reina Sofia” in Madrid. Besides giving master classes around the world, he has also spent many summers as a faculty member at the Steans Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia, Chicago. In the last years he has also been invited as juror at major international piano competitions.

The list of his compositions includes three chamber operas, chamber music, songs, the chamber cantata “The Ox and its Sephard” (recorded by Ondine) and a Concerto Grosso version of it for violin, piano and strings. In April 2003 his chamber orchestra arrangement of Hugo Wolf´s Italian Songbook got its premier in Stuttgart. And in 2014 his Chamber Concerto "Peregrina" for viola and chamber orchestra was premiered in Hamburg.

Ralf Gothoni is also an essayist; his first book about the phenomenology in the music “The Creative Moment” was published with great success in 1998. His second book, “Does the moon rotate” was published in 2001 and the third "The Spider" in 2014. In 2016 his memories "Sounds of life" were published .

Mr. Gothoni has been honored with several awards, including the Gilmore Artist Award in 1994, which is one of the biggest awards in classical music, Schubert Medal of the Austrian Ministry of Culture and the Order of Pro Finlandia. In 2012 Mr Gothòni was awarded in Madrid by Sofia, the Queen of Spain.

Roope Gröndahl

A laureate of the 2013 Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels, Roope Gröndahl is one of the most sought after young pianists in Finland. He has appeared as soloist with all the major Finnish orchestras, most notably the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tampere Philharmonic and Lahti Symphony Orchestra, collaborating with conductors Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Sakari Oramo, Leif Segerstam, Okko Kamu, and Santtu-Matias Rouvali. Roope Gröndahl has also performed with Marin Alsop and the National Orchestra of Belgium as well as the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie. Representing Finland in the 2008 Eurovision Young Musicians competition in Vienna, he brought home the 2nd Prize. In 2007 he was awarded the 2nd Prize in the International Maj Lind Piano Competition in Helsinki, being the youngest competitor.

An active chamber musician, Gröndahl has performed with artists such as Pekka Kuusisto, Ilya Gringolts and Steven Isserlis at the Helsinki Festival and Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival and received guidance from Emanuel Ax and Ralf Gothóni.  He has performed solo and chamber music recitals in the UK, Central Europe, China, the United States and Australia. In the summer of 2016 he will be a Fellow at Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago.

Born in 1989, Gröndahl completed his postgraduate studies in 2014 at the Royal Academy of Music in London as a student of Christopher Elton. Previously, he studied with Liisa Pohjola and Matti Raekallio at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.  He has also participated in Masterclasses with Paul Badura-Skoda, Angela Hewitt, Stephen Kovacevich, and Alain Planés, to name but a few.

Roope Gröndahl's websites »»

Anna-Liisa Bezrodny

Anna-Liisa Bezrodny

Niamh Mckenna

Niamh Mckenna

Wen Xiao Zheng

Xiao Zheng was born in Shanghai, China, in 1981. At the age of four, he began playing the violin and was received at a promotion programme for highly skilled young musicians at the Shanghai Conservatory at the age of 10. The change to viola came at the age of 14. He completed his studies with a Bachelor of Arts with ”outstanding awards”.

He moved to Spain and Germany to study with Gérard Caussé at the Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia Madrid and with Prof. Diemut Poppen at the Hochschule für Musik, Detmold, and finally to Munich to Prof.Hariolf Schlichtig at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, meanwhile attending international masterclasses with Yuri Bashmet und Paul Newbauer. 2009 he finished his studies with an additional degree in chamber music.

Zheng has won first prizes at the National China Viola competition, the Spanish competition Ciudad de Xativa, a special award, given by the president of the jury (Yuri Bashmet) at the Lionel Tertis Viola Competition in the UK, a prize at the Llanes Viola Competition (Spain) and a special award at the Yuri Bahmet Viola Competition in Moskau. Zheng is the second prize-winner at the 2008 ARD International Music Competition in Munich, Germany; a first prize was not awarded).

The Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben awarded him 2009 a viola build by P. A. Testore, 2010 a viola by international renowned violin maker Haiko Seifert from Plauen, Germany. Wen Xiao Zheng has performed as a soloist with a couple of major orchestras, like the Bavarian State Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

In a special project he was involved at a recording with the famous Korean soprano Sumi Jo. Zheng is an activ chamber musician: Among his partners are Eduard Brunner, Sonja Korkeala, Erik Schumann, Nicolas Atstaedt, Ingolf Turban, Guido Schiefen and Lilian Akopova. In 2010 Zheng became the principal violist of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and in 2014 started at the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich in the same position.

Wen Xiao Zheng’s websites »»

Jan-Erik Gustafsson

Jan-Erik Gustafsson (born in 1970) began playing the cello at the age of eight and completed his soloist diploma examination in Stockholm in 1992 studying with Frans Helmerson. He has won acclaim at several international competitions. His career was boosted after performing in the EBU Young Soloists Concert in Copenhagen 1986. In 1994 he signed a contract with the American Young Concert Artists Agency, gave his debut in New York and has since done numerous concert tours around the world.

Cellist Gustafsson has performed as soloist with most of the Finnish as well as with several orchestras abroad, in addition to giving worldwide recitals.  In 1998 Jan-Erik Gustafsson was appointed Artistic Director of the Loviisa Sibelius Festival.  He has made recordings for record label Ondine, LPO and BIS. He plays a Stefano Scarampella (1890) cello.

Päivi Severeide

Uusi Helsinki -Quartet

Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra

Keski-Pohjanmaan Kamariorkesterin tavaramerkki on väkevä, täyteläinen ja ryhdikäs luomusointi. Intensiiviset tulkinnat ja vahva vuorovaikutus antavat aihetta iloon ja oivalluksiin niin lavalla kuin katsomossa.

Kapellimestari Juha Kankaan perustaman soittajiston konsertit ovat kuulijalle juhlaa, olipa esiintymispaikkana sitten kotikaupungin Snellman-sali, kansainvälinen konserttitalo tai vaikkapa päiväkoti.

Keski-Pohjanmaan Kamariorkesteri on yhtä lailla kotonaan niin nykymusiikin haasteissa kuin barokin ja romantiikan mestariteoksissa. Aikamme suomalainen musiikki on tärkeä osa sen ohjelmistoa.