Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Olli Mustonen has a unique place on today’s music scene. Following the tradition of great masters such as Rachmaninov, Busoni and Enescu, Mustonen combines the roles of his musicianship as composer, pianist and conductor in an equal balance that is quite exceptional, often bringing them together in one fascinating triple-role performance. This season, he continues his position of Principal Guest Conductor of the Lapland Chamber Orchestra where he combines orchestral concerts with chamber music and recitals.

During an illustrious career, Mustonen has brought his extraordinary musical insight to many of the world’s most significant orchestras, including the Berlin, New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orkest, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, and all the London orchestras.

Opening this season in Turku he is joined by friend and long-term collaborator Steven Isserlis for performances of Britten’s Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, as well as Shostakovich’s less frequently performed Symphony No. 15. He performs with the Tonhalle Zürich under Paavo Järvi, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrucken for Bartók’s second Piano Concerto and Respighi’s Concerto in modo misolidio with Solistes Européens in Luxembourg. A regular visitor to festivals across Europe, he appears at Klassiske Dage Holstebro where he is also composer in residence; returns to South America to open the Cartagena Music Festival with Grieg’s Piano Concerto as well as give recitals. Other festivals include Concentus Moraviae, Stavanger Piano Festival and Tampere Chamber Music Festival, and he gives recitals across Austria and Germany.

Last season he returned to Camerata Zürich for the second consecutive season as Artist in Residence and went on a fifteen-concert tour in Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Following that, he returned to Japan to perform with Herbert Blomstedt and the NHK Symphony Orchestra as well as a series of recitals in Tokyo and a return to London’s Wigmore Hall for a full cycle of Prokofiev sonatas. Other recent highlights have included the Prague Philharmonia and RSO Wien for Martinů’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Further afield, he returned to Brazil for his triple role, conducting the Orquesta Filarmonica de Minas Gerais, performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25, and opened the programme with one of his own compositions – The Old Church at Petäjävesi. He has strong relationships with orchestras across Finland including the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic and Jyväskylä Sinfonia as well as the Sinfonia Lahti with whom he has recently released an album of Rautavaara and Martinů’s third piano concerto under the baton of Dalia Stasevska.

Recipient of the 2019 Hindemith Prize of the City of Hanau, Mustonen’s life as a composer is at the heart of his piano playing and conducting. Frequently bringing his own works to the chamber music stage, the world premiere of his work Taivaanvalot (Heavenly Lights) for Tenor, Cello and Piano was performed at Het Muziekgebouw, Amsterdam by Mustonen himself, alongside Ian Bostridge and Steven Isserlis. Additional performances took place at London’s Wigmore Hall and in Hong Kong. His string sextet was commissioned by the Beethoven Festival Bonn and first performed there in February 2020. Last season saw the premiere of two of Mustonen’s new works: Apotheosis, in memoriam Pablo Casals (commissioned by the Kronberg Academy) at the opening gala of the Casals Forum in Kronberg, Germany; and his Sinfonia No. 3 Taivaanvalot with the Turku Philharmonic and tenor soloist Ian Bostridge.

As a recitalist, Mustonen has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Center Chicago, Diaghilev Festival Perm, Dresden Festival, Lockenhaus Festival, New York Zankel Hall and Sydney Opera House. With Steven Isserlis, Mustonen has performed as a duo for more than thirty years. 2019 saw the release of their disc of Russian works for cello and piano on the Hyperion label.

Acclaimed for his ‘radiantly lyrical’ voice, Irish tenor Robin Tritschler has garnered praise from critics and audiences for his performances. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music and was a BBC New Generation Artist.

This season Robin will make his debut with the London Symphony Orchestra for Bruckner’s Te Deum conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann. He will also join Raphaël Pichon and the Munich Philharmonic for concerts of Mozart’s Mass in C minor and make a return to the Oxford International Song Festival for two recitals; Die schöne Müllerin with Graham Johnson and a curated programme that features William Blake as both poet and artist with pianist Christopher Glynn.

22/23 saw Robin join Nathalie Stutzmann and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra for their season opening with performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. He returned later as the Evangelist in performances of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Robin also joined the Ulster Orchestra for Haydn’s The Creation (Daniele Rustioni), the Orchestra della Toscana for Britten’s Serenade (Michele Spotti), the Finnish Baroque Orchestra for Bach’s St John Passion and Ensemble Pygmalion for Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang. Robin also sang Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Oslo Domkor and later with the Dresdner Kreuzchor. For Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Robin stood in at short notice and sang Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni).

Recent seasons have seen Robin in concert with Le Concert Spirituel and Hervé Niquet for performances of Mozart’s Requiem recorded for release on Alpha Classics, Ensemble Pygmalion for Mozart’s Mass in C minor at the Salzburg Festival, Britten’s War Requiem in Katowice with Charles Dutoit, and Mass in C minor with the Bayerische Rundfunk (Blomstedt). Robin sang the Evangelist in Theater Basel’s new production of St Matthew Passion, a coproduction with Deutsche Oper Berlin, staged by Benedikt von Peter, and returned to the Royal Opera House as Jaquino (Fidelio), conducted by Antonio Pappano. Further highlights have seen the opening recital of Wigmore Hall’s 2017/18 season, Scwhanengesang in San Diego with Inon Barnatan, St John Passion in Dresden and Salzburg with Herreweghe; appearances with Pygmalion (Raphael Pichon), NDR Hannover, London Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw orchestras; a return to the Risor Chamber Music Festival; and his debut for the Bregenz Festival in a newly commissioned opera by Thomas Larcher, The Hunting Gun.

In concert, Robin has appeared with many leading orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Nathalie Stutzmann and Vladimir Jurowski), L’Orchestre National de Lyon (Yutaka Sado), Gulbenkian Foundation Lisbon, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (Edo de Waart), the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (Philippe Herreweghe), the Moscow Virtuosi (Vladimir Spivakov), and the BBC Philharmonic (Juanjo Mena). With the RTE Concert Orchestra, Robin performed Messiah before Pope Benedict XVI to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of the Vatican State and gave the UK premiere of CPE Bach’s St John Passion with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Kirill Karabits.

Robin has sung with Welsh National Opera, including Count Almaviva Il barbiere di Siviglia, Nemorino L’elisir d’amore, Narraboth Salome, Ferrando Così fan tutte, Don Ottavio Don Giovanni and Belmonte Die Entführung aus dem Serail. He made his debut with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden in Wozzeck, and with Garsington Opera as Ferrando. Robin also created the tenor roles in Roger Waters’ Ça Ira and Will Gregory’s Piccard in Space and appearing in Jonathan Harvey’s Wagner Dream (WNO) and productions of John Cage’s Europeras 1 & 2, and Louis Andriessen’s De Materie with the RuhrTriennale Festival and in his debut for the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires.

Robin is a superb recitalist. He appears regularly at London’s Wigmore Hall with leading accompanists Graham Johnson, Malcolm Martineau, Iain Burnside, and Julius Drake. He has performed recitals at many other renowned venues such as the Köln Philharmonie, Het Concertgebouw, the Kennedy Centre (Washington DC), and at the Aldeburgh Festival, Aix-en-Provence Festival, the KlavierfestRuhr and the West Cork Chamber Music Festival. In 2012 Robin was selected as a BBC New Generation Artist and has broadcast extensively with their orchestras, including appearing at the BBC Proms with Sir Mark Elder.

His growing discography includes a critically acclaimed recording of Britten’s Winter Words with Malcolm Martineau (Onyx), Poulenc: The Complete Songs with Graham Johnson (Hyperion), a recording of World War One songs with Malcolm Martineau, and a Britten and Schubert disc with Iain Burnside as part of the Wigmore Hall Live series.

Danish flautist Janne Thomsen is a highly sought after soloist, a passionate chamber musician and an international prize winner from competitions in Prague, Paris, Bayreuth, Rome, Vienna and Boston. She is praised by reviewers for her unique artistic voice, characterized by a wide dynamic range of colours and technical prowess, and she enjoys collaborating with leading composers, who have dedicated works to her, such as Osvaldo Golijov, Giya Kancheli, Olli Mustonen and Peteris Vasks.

Projects in 2024 include the premiere with Prague Philharmonia of Mustonen’s flute concerto, The Storyteller, written for Janne, conducted by the composer. She has been invited by Osvaldo Golijov to record the love theme for the soundtrack of Francis Ford Coppola’s new epic film Megalopolis, premiering in September, whereas the concert premiere of Ancient Roman Love Theme, dedicated to Janne, will follow. This year also brings the release of two recordings, the first with Cecilia Zilliacus, Andreas Brantelid and Bengt Forsberg and the second a project around Danish folk music with the folk fiddler Harald Haugaard and jazz drummer Anders Mogensen.

Janne Thomsen performs as a soloist with orchestras including the English Chamber Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Kremerata Baltica, Salzburg Camerata, Wiener Kammerorkester, Hong Kong and Moscow Soloists, conducted by Gidon Kremer, Olli Mustonen, Yuri Bashmet, Christopher Hogwood, Thomas Dausgaard, Christian Kluxen and Maxim Vengerov.

She is also the founder and artistic director of the Danish “Klassiske Dage” festival (2005–) with programmes that strive to imaginatively explore artistic connections within a narrative.

She has been awarded an ARAM – Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in London, which was also her main place of study, before completing her master’s degree at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris.

Janne has been granted support from Queen Margrethe II and Prince Henrik’s Foundation, as well as the New York Danish- American Association. She has taught at the Mozarteum Conservatory in Salzburg and has been a visiting professor at the Lucerne University of Music. She plays a flute, especially crafted for her, by the Peruvian/Bostonian flute maker, Miguel Arista.

Ismo Eskelinen is acclaimed as one of the world’s finest classical guitarists. He has been a pioneer in bringing classical guitar to a wider audience, playing often as an orchestra soloist, chamber musician and in collaboration with some of the most distinguished contemporary composers. His impressive list of recordings include two Bach albums, of which the first won the Finnish Emma prize in the category of best classical album in 2014. A concerto recording with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra Hannu Lintu was released in 2018 (BIS). The latest recordings are Songbook with Jan Vogler (Sony Classical 2019), Carnival (BIS 2019) with Karen Gomyo and Kromos (BIS 2020), a solo album that contains music composed for Eskelinen.

Eskelinen has performed at venues such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Royal Festival Hall and the Théâtre de la Monnaie. His is the first guitarist to be invited as a soloist at the new Music Hall in Helsinki with both resident orchestras, the Helsinki Philharmonic and the Finish Radio Symphony. Recent soloist engagements include the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, NWD Philharmonie in Germany, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Lahti and the Chamber Orchestra of Lapland with conductors such as Sakari Oramo, Hannu Lintu, John Storgårds, Dima Slobodeniuk, Olli Mustonen, Miguel Harth-Bedoya and Ernest Martínez-Izquierdo.

As an active chamber musician, Eskelien plays regular duos with violinist Karen Gomyo and the cellist Jan Vogler. He is a regular guest at several festivals such as Naantali and Moritzburg, and has been the first ever guitarist to be invited to many of them, including the Moritzburg, Dresden, Charlottesville, Mainz, Sylt, Holstebro and Büsingen Festivals.

Eskelinen’s repertoire spans music from the sixteenth century to the present day and he has been equally acclaimed for his performances of Bach as for his premieres of works written for him by composers such as Einojuhani Rautavaara, Aulis Sallinen, Jukka Tiensuu, Kalevi Aho, Olli Mustonen and Sebastian Fagerlund.

Eskelinen is the Lecturer-in-charge of Guitar at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and Sonkajärvi Soi festival in Finland. He was the Artistic Director of the Riihimäki summer concerts 2017–23. As the Artist in Residence at Verkatehdas, Hämeenlinna he planned a Global Guitar concert series for seasons 2016–17.

Kristian Winther is widely recognised for his ability to perform as a virtuosic violin soloist and as an energetic and brilliant chamber musician, seeking musical challenges performing classic, contemporary and rare works.

As violin soloist, Kristian has appeared with the Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland, Christchurch and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, Auckland Philharmonic, Gruppo Montebello and Orchestra Romantique. He has performed under the batons of conductors including Jessica Cottis, Olli Mustonen, Miguel Harth- Bedoya, Marcus Stenz, Oleg Caetani, David Robertson and Fabian Russell.

In the role of leader/director he has performed as Guest Concertmaster of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Melbourne and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, and as leader/director of ACO Collective.

A devoted chamber musician, Kristian was formerly violinist in the Tinalley String Quartet, winning first prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition, which was followed by tours of the USA, Canada and Europe. He has also performed chamber music with Anthony Romaniuk, Daniel de Borah, Anne Sofie von Otter, Angela Hewitt, Steven Osborne, Anna Goldsworthy, Richard Tognetti, Brett and Paul Dean, Konstantin Shamray, Hue Blanes and Joe Chindamo. As an original musician of the Play On series since 2016, Kristian has performed music from the 16th to the 21st centuries at diverse venues including an underground car park in Collingwood and a nightclub in Berlin. Other recent solo/ chamber music highlights include performing all of JS Bach’s unaccompanied sonatas and partitas at the Canberra Festival in a single day, the complete Schumann string quartets in one concert on raw gut strings, and Reger’s monumental Violin Concerto at the Orlando Festival in the Netherlands.

Committed to performing new repertoire, Kristian gave the premiere of Olli Mustonen’s Sonata for Violin and Orchestra (with the composer conducting the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra), as well as the Australian premieres of works by Louis Andriessen, Knussen, Kurtág, Salonen, Rihm, Widmann, Kelly-Marie Murphy, and numerous Australian composers. Kristian also gave the Australian premiere of John Adams’ concertante work for string quartet and orchestra Absolute Jest with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and the Australian and New Zealand premieres of Brett Dean’s violin concerto The Lost Art of Letter Writing.

Kristian performs on a violin crafted by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, Paris, 1859, on generous loan from UKARIA.

Franco-Dutch violinist Cosima Soulez Larivière is already building a name for herself, having been awarded numerous prizes – third prize at the Joseph Joachim Competition in 2018, first prize at the inaugural Bartók World Competition and Festival in 2017, first prize at the Brahms Competition in 2015 and third prize and the Bach prize at the Postacchini Competition, also in 2015.

Concerts have brought her all over Europe (Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Franz Liszt Academy) as well as to Japan, Singapore and the United States. Soulez Larivière has a great interest in modern and contemporary composers and as such, has performed works by Pēteris Vasks, Sofia Gubaidulina, Steve Reich, Fazil Say and Gabriel Prokofiev. Additionally, she enjoys playing chamber music and often performs alongside her brother, violist Sào Soulez Larivière.

Soulez Larivière has been invited to participate in several festivals, namely Accademia Chigiana (where she received the ‘Giovanni Maniezzo’ Award), Seiji Ozawa Academy, Ravinia Steans Institute, Verbier Festival Academy (where she received the APCAV Award), Tanglewood Music Centre and ‘Chamber Music Connects the World’ at the Kronberg Academy.

She has participated in masterclasses with Ilya Gringolts, Ana Chumachenco and Miriam Fried, and from 2019–2023, was part of the Accademia Stauffer (studying with Salvatore Accardo). She holds a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes since 2017 and was previously supported by Live Music Now Hannover e.V (2015–2019) and the Young Artists Foundation gGmbH (2018–2021). In 2021, she received a scholarship from the Villa Musica Rheinland-Pflaz Foundation.

As a result of the pandemic, she took part in several streamed broadcasts and concerts, notably, Daniel Hope’s Hope@ Home (Arte TV), Renaud Capuçon’s Beethoven project ‘Ludwig à Paris’ (Medici TV) and Heidelberger Frühling’s Digital Festival ‘Lasst uns spielen!’.

Soulez Larivière was born in Paris and from a young age was taught by Igor Volochine. When she was eight years old, she was awarded a scholarship to the Yehudi Menuhin School, where she became a pupil of Natasha Boyarsky. She obtained both her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at the University of Music, Drama and Media in Hannover with Krzysztof Wegrzyn. Since 2023, she has been studying at the Kronberg Academy (Professional Studies) with Mihaela Martin.

As a scholarship holder of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, she has generously been loaned a violin by Giovanni Grancino (Milan, 1675).

Franco-Dutch violist Sào Soulez Larivière is quickly building himself a thriving career as a versatile musician. Captivating audiences with his playing and original programming, he endeavours to broaden the accessibility and perception of classical music in our modern world. A string of recent competition successes have propelled his international career, receiving first prize at the Prague Spring International Competition, as well as top prizes at the Tokyo, Oskar Nedbal, Max Rostal, Cecil Aronowitz and Johannes Brahms competitions.

Chamber music has always been at the heart of Sào’s musical upbringing, sharing his love for music with his sister, violinist Cosima Soulez Larivière, with whom he still frequently performs. He is also a member of the Frielinghaus Ensemble, which recently released an acclaimed album, featuring string sextets by Dvořák and Tchaikovsky. An advocate for expanding the horizons of the viola repertoire, he enjoys arranging works for his instrument, as well as promoting contemporary music. Working with accomplished composers has offered him an unparalleled opportunity to delve deeper into the creative side of music.

Born in Paris in 1998, Sào originally started playing the violin and at a young age received a scholarship to study with Natasha Boyarsky at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England. Having discovered the viola whilst playing chamber and orchestral music there, he decided to devote himself fully to the instrument towards the end of his school years. Furthermore, his musical development has been deeply enriched by working with many esteemed musicians such as Jean Sulem, Nobuko Imai, Antoine Tamestit, Boris Garlitsky, and Steven Isserlis.

Sào is based in Berlin, where he obtained a Bachelor of Music with Tabea Zimmermann at the Hochschule für Musik ‘Hanns Eisler’. He is currently enrolled in the Professional Studies programme at the Kronberg Academy, where he earned his masters degree, which was funded by the Leber patronage. Teaching has become a great passion in Sào’s musical life, and he is thrilled to have been appointed Professor of Viola at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg from Autumn 2023.

In 2019 Sào was awarded the ‘Ritter Preis’ on behalf of the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation. In the following year he received the Fanny Mendelssohn Förderpreis, which enabled him to release his debut album Impression in 2021. Most recently, he was presented with the 2023 International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) ‘Young Artist of the Year’ Award. He has been nominated as a European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) ‘Rising Star’, which will see him perform in Europe’s most prominent concert halls in the 2024/25 season.

He is a scholarship holder of the Yehudi Menuhin ‘Live Music Now’ e.V. Berlin, and has generously been supported by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and the Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz Foundation.

Sào plays a viola made in Montpellier in 2013 by Frédéric Chaudière.

Timo-Veikko Valve, affectionately known by audiences far and wide as ‘Tipi’, grew up in Finland, surrounded by a family who are ‘musically orientated normal people’. Music lessons were a natural part of his upbringing, and at six years old, Tipi was encouraged to pick up the cello after a teacher at the local music school declared with considerable conviction that ‘he looks just like a cellist!’. To this day, Tipi remains somewhat puzzled about what that statement actually meant. Whatever the subtext, the teacher seems to have been correct.

Valve was appointed Principal Cello of the Australian Chamber Orchestra in 2006, and his leadership soon became an integral part of the ACO. Recognised for his natural, creative, and generous musicianship, Tipi seeks to define the modern-day musician. Prior to his Australian adventure, Tipi studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki before continuing to the Edsberg Music Institute in Stockholm.

Tipi effortlessly transitions between modern and period instruments and describes the cello as a flexible and adaptive partner, both in its role in an ensemble and as a soloist, across all forms of music. He reflects this versatility and enjoys a diverse career as a musician, curator and director, directing from the cello as he plays and appearing as a soloist with many of the major orchestras across his two home countries, Finland and Australia. Tipi is also a sought-after collaborator and frequently appears as a chamber musician. His active commitment to the music of our times through curating and commissioning has seen him delivering world-premiere performances of multiple concertos and other significant works written especially for him.

Currently, Tipi plays on a Brothers Amati cello from 1616, kindly on loan from the ACO Instrument Fund.

www.timo-veikkovalve.fi

Seating in the auditorium is intimate and we pride ourselves on the fact that there is not a bad seat in the hall.

Nonetheless, we recognise that those who have booked multiple concerts over the course of a day like to return to their seat for the second performance.

In 2024 we are introducing a mechanism to save a seat at the end of the first performance of the day for those who have booked either the Weekend Package or the Concerts Only Package. This means that package ticket holders only can relax in the Garden Terrace in between concerts, knowing that their seat is reserved for the second performance.

On Friday evening, all package ticket holders can collect their lanyard in the foyer. On Saturday and Sunday at the first performance of the day, the package ticket holder shows the Front of House team their lanyard and the package ticket holder will be given a sign to place over their chair at the end of that performance. This will reserve the seat for the second performance of the day. At the end of the day (on Saturday), all signs will be removed and the same procedure on Sunday will need to be followed. This enables our Front of House team to prepare the hall as required.

We appreciate not all package ticket holders will want to reserve their seat, so there is no obligation to proceed in this way. For single ticket holders, we request you respect this approach.

Due to limited capacity in the Garden Terrace, dinner on Saturday and lunch on Sunday is only available to WEEKEND PACKAGE ticket holders. If you wish to register your interest for a meal (should not all Weekend Packages be sold and there be availability closer to the weekend), please sign up to the Waitlist for meals on the UKARIA 24 webpage [see above].