Violinist Pekka Kuusisto compares a new concerto to ‘a boxing match’

Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto compares the concerto written for him by Bryce Dessner, guitarist of the rock band the National, to a work-out. “It’s the only piece [for which] I do push-ups as a warm-up,” he said. “A fast 20 push-ups. The work is like a boxing match.” 

Though the combo of Kuusisto and Dessner might seem unlikely, both believe in breaking genre boundaries. The first record that Kuusisto recalls purchasing is “Diggi-Loo, Diggi-Ley” by the Herreys, a Swedish pop group consisting of three Mormon brothers. The track won the 1984 Eurovision Song Contest, becoming the first Swedish work to take the top prize (“Waterloo,” by fellow Swedes ABBA, was sung in English when it triumphed at Eurovision 1974). Along with offbeat pop, Kuusisto also fancies folk, jazz and electronic music. “All of this helps me to stay focused in classical music,” he said in an interview last month with Germany’s Hamburg Abendblatt.

Dessner composed the concerto specifically for Kuusisto, who will perform it with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under Esa-Pekka Salonen, in concerts May 26-31. The work received its world premiere last October, with Kuusisto joining the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. The concerto was inspired in part by Canadian poet Anne Carson’s essay titled “The Anthropology of Water,” which reimagines the the traditional Catholic pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain’s Basque region.

Easily moving among genres, Dessner has collaborated with classical music luminaries such as Philip Glass, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Nico Muhly and Steve Reich, who calls Dessner “a major voice of his generation.” On the pop-music side, he has worked with Bon Iver, Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens and Taylor Swift. “I could have exited the highway to just do one specific thing,” he said, “but it’s never interested me to have just one path.”

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