Petri Kumela

Petri Kumela has established his position as one of our country’s most versatile and interesting classical musicians, who is equally at home with period instruments as when working with contemporary composers. Kumela has won the Classical Emma and the Finnish Broadcasting Company’s Record of the Year awards, and he has been granted the State Prize for Music as part of the planning and organisation of the musical activities at Hietsu Pavilion. He is the only classical guitarist to have been nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize, and he has even been nominated for the Finlandia Junior children’s literature prize. Kumela is also one of our most international guitarists and known for his open‑mindedness and ability to transform himself, whether it is a recital in Kolkata, motorising guitars in Mexico or school concerts in Japan.

Petri Kumela studied at the Helsinki Conservatory under Juan Antonio Muro and in Germany at the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg‑Augsburg in the class of Franz Hálasz. He was the first guitarist to be accepted into the prestigious Meisterklassen programme, and he was awarded the rare DAAD scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service for two consecutive years to continue his studies in Hálasz’s masterclass. As a complement to his studies, he has participated in numerous masterclasses, with teachers including Leo Brouwer, Oscar Chiglia, Alirio Díaz, Eduardo Egüez and David Russell.

Petri Kumela has won first prizes in the international guitar competitions “Scandinavian Guitar Festival” and “Stafford Classical Guitar Recital”. In addition to Finland, he has performed in several European countries, in South America, the United States, Russia, Japan, India and Bhutan. Concert venues have ranged from intimate home concerts to prestigious concert halls such as the Helsinki Music Centre, the Purcell Room (Southbank Centre) in London and the Kitara Hall in Sapporo.

In Finland he has been heard at numerous festivals and concert series, and Kumela has performed as an orchestral soloist with, among others, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sinfónica de Galicia, the Lapland Chamber Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, the Finnish Baroque Orchestra, Kymi Sinfonietta and the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, under conductors Olari Elts, Anna‑Maria Helsing, Juha Kangas, Massimo Lambertini, Rumon Gamba, Hannu Lintu, Ari Rasilainen, Yasuo Shinozaki, Dima Slobodeniouk, Dalia Stasevska and John Storgårds. In addition to solo concerts, he is also extremely active as a chamber musician and has performed with the Uusinta, defun, Insomnio and Tampere Raw ensembles, as well as with many other groups and musicians. Kumela is the guitar principal of the Avanti! chamber orchestra.

Petri Kumela is particularly dedicated to contemporary music and has premiered ten guitar concertos and numerous smaller works both in Finland and abroad. Composers who have dedicated works to him include Kalevi Aho, Minna Leinonen, Olli Kortekangas, Poul Ruders, Joachim F.W. Schneider, Sebastian Hilli, José‑María Sanchez‑Verdú, Lotta Wennäkoski and Pehr Henrik Nordgren.

Kumela has served as artistic director of the chamber music series of the Nordic Music Days (2013) and of the Sipoon Äänet festival (2017–2024). He has also been involved in founding and curating the state‑awarded concert series Klassinen Hietsu (2017–2024) and Hietsu is Happening! (2016– ).

Kumela teaches at the Sibelius Academy.

Petri Kumela has released eleven recordings: Recital (2002), Spellbound Tones – P.H. Nordgren’s works for guitar (2005), C.P.E. Bach, Transcriptions for Guitar (2007), Change is Gonna Come (2010) and Nebula – Paavo Korpijaakko’s works for guitar (2012). The album Oudossa Seurassa was released in November 2013 and was nominated both for the Emma Award in the classical category and for YLE’s Record of the Year. In 2016 Fantasía Andaluza was released together with flamenco guitarist Joonas Widenius, and in 2017 Goldberg with the German Jürgen Ruck. His recording of Fernando Sor’s music on period guitar, Solo Sor, was nominated for YLE’s Record of the Year, and the respected Classical Guitar Magazine selected it as one of the ten best albums of 2018. Kumela’s album Pieniä Otuksia – musiikillinen bestiaari (2020) was chosen as YLE’s Record of the Year and won the Classical Emma Award. The album contains 35 animal miniatures for guitar, each by a different composer. The book based on the music, Opus Otus (Otava), was in turn nominated for the Finlandia Junior prize. In autumn 2023 the album Exquisitely Absurd, recorded with Tapiola Sinfonietta and Dima Slobodeniouk and containing guitar concertos by Lotta Wennäkoski, Riikka Talvitie and Antti Auvinen (Alba), was released.

In addition to his recordings, Kumela has made several broadcasts for YLE and other international radio and television companies.