Pekka Kuusisto is a Finnish violinist,
composer, conductor, and teacher born (in Espoo, Finland – a small city ten
miles west of Helsinki) on October 7, 1976.
He is known for presenting unusual programs of music which are quite
eclectic while maintaining their seriousness.
He has been known to sing at his recitals. He also sometimes uses an undulating bow
stroke which produces a subtly different sound.
As strange as it might sound, Kuusisto was the first (and – up to the
present time - the only) Finn to win, in 1995, the Sibelius Violin
Competition. He was 19 years old at the
time. Here is a YouTube video of his
performance at the competition. Kuusisto
began his studies at age 3. His first
teacher was Geza Szilvay at the East Helsinki Music Institute. (Szilvay is well known for teaching young
children.) Four years later Kuusisto
enrolled at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
One of his teachers there was Tuomas Haapanen. Nine years later, he studied for four years
at Indiana University with Miriam Fried and Paul Biss (husband of Miriam Fried.) He finished his studies there in 1996. He was 20 years old. A very curious anomaly about Kuusisto’s
career is that his discography is rather slim given his extreme virtuosity as a
musician. (That is very striking and
reminds me of Norwegian violinist Mari Samuelsen’s discography which is also rather slender.) Besides solo concertizing, Kuusisto regularly
participates in music festivals around the world and often performs with
ensembles focused on contemporary music.
Here is a video of a concert with Kuusisto conducting the Australian
Chamber Orchestra in a performance of modern music, including electronics – one
of the pieces shows the strings using what look like practice mutes, not
regular mutes. As far as I know,
Kuusisto’s violin is still a 1752 G.B. Guadagnini.
Alina Pogostkina is a Russian violinist born (in
Leningrad) on November 18, 1983. She
began her lessons at age 4 with her father and gave her first concert one year
later. When she was 8 years old (1992),
her family moved to Heidelberg, Germany.
According to one source, she and both of her parents - both are
violinists – for some time made a living playing on the street. Marie Hall did essentially the same thing in
England, though without her parents. Pogostkina
is said to favor modern music. She
attended the Advanced School for Music in Berlin, studying with Antje
Weithaas. Along the way, she
participated in several competitions, eventually winning the Jean Sibelius
Competition in Helsinki in December of 2005, using a modern violin by Falk
Peters. She had already won the Louis
Spohr Competition in 1997 (Freiburg, Germany) at age 14. She also participated in the Queen Elizabeth
and the Indianapolis Violin Competitions (2001 and 2002, respectively.) Pogostkina now plays all over the world,
accompanied by the best orchestras and the best conductors. She also participates in quite a few music
festivals around the world. Her sound
and technique is similar to Hilary Hahn’s – very crisp, emphatic, and clean
with flawless intonation - but her musicianship is different. YouTube has a few videos of her
performances. One is here, showing a
complete (and spectacular) performance of the Sibelius concerto. For a while, she was playing a 1709 Stradivarius
violin, a loan from the German Music Instrument Fund. Pogostkina now plays a modern violin by ChristianBayon. Of course, if you are a regular
reader of this blog, you know I absolutely favor modern violins over any old
instrument. The reason is that they are
at least equal to any Amati, Strad, Guadagnini, Goffriller, or Guarneri and, in
most cases, much better.
Viktoria Mullova is a Russian violinist born on November 27, 1959 (Heifetz was 58 years old.) She has been successful in her concert career since before she defected from the Soviet Union twenty six years ago (1983.) Mullova is very much at ease in her extroverted style and likes wearing brightly colored outfits for her appearances. She is also well-known for having had several lovers, Claudio Abbado among them. She began her violin studies at age four. She then studied at Moscow's Central Music School; afterward at the Moscow Conservatory with Leonid Kogan. In 1980, she took first prize in the Sibelius Competition (Helsinki), and the gold medal in the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1982. Her discography is fairly extensive but does not include the Bruch concerto nor the Lalo Symphonie Espagnol. Mullova has played the Jules Falk Stradivarius (1723) for many years and a Guadagnini from 1750 as well. There are many videos posted on YouTube showing her playing in recital and with orchestra.
