Violinist, conductor and composer Pekka Kuusisto is renowned for his artistic freedom and fresh approach to repertoire.
Recognized for his flair in directing ensembles, Kuusisto is artistic director of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra (from the 2021-22 season) and artistic partner with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He is also a collaborative partner of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic best friend of Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. In the 2000-21 season, Kuusisto was artist-in-residence with the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt. He was also in residence at Milton Court at the Barbican, which culminated in a concert with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra.
Kuusisto is an enthusiastic advocate of contemporary music and a gifted improviser and regularly engages with people across the artistic spectrum. Uninhibited by conventional genre boundaries and noted for his innovative programming, he has collaborated with Hauschka and Kosminen, Dutch neurologist Erik Scherder, pioneer of electronic music Brian Crabtree, eminent jazz-trumpeter Arve Henriksen, juggler Jay Gilligan, accordionist Dermot Dunne and folk artist Sam Amidon.
This season, he will premiere new concertos by Bryce Dessner, Djuro Zivkovic and Enrico Chapela and chamber works by Sauli Zinovjev and Calliope Tsoupaki. He also performs other concertos written for him, including Daníel Bjarnason’s Violin Concerto, Anders Hillborg’s Bach Materia and Nico Muhly’s violin concerto, Shrink. In recent seasons Kuusisto has premiered new works by Sauli Zinovjev, Anders Hillborg, Philip Venables and Andrea Tarrodi. He also tours around the world with orchestras such as Chicago and Los Angeles symphony orchestras, Royal Concertgebouw, Orchestre de Paris, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia, as well as Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Australian, Scottish and Swedish chamber orchestras.
Kuusisto has released several recordings, notably for Ondine and BIS. He has recently recorded Ades’ Violin Concerto with Aurora and Nicolas Collon for Deutsche Grammophon, Hillborg’s Bach Materia and Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3-4 with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Thomas Dausgaard for BIS and Daniel Bjarnason’s Violin Concerto with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, with the composer conducting, for Sono Luminus. Past releases include Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Noesis concerto for violin and orchestra for Ondine and Sebastian Fagerlund’s violin concerto Darkness in Light for BIS, both recorded with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hannu Lintu.
