Anssi Karttunen

Last updated

Anssi Karttunen (born 1960) is a Finnish cellist.

Karttunen's repertoire ranges from the early baroque to living composers and improvisation. He has performed with many orchestras in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, including the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Filarmonica della Scala, RAI Torino, Munich Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, NHK Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, Shanghai Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, and Filarmónica de Buenos Aires, and at major festivals worldwide.

Karttunen has given world premieres of over 200 works, among them 31 for cello and orchestra. Many composers have dedicated works to him, including Luca Francesconi, Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Tan Dun, Rolf Wallin, Pascal Dusapin, Fred Lerdahl ( Arches ), and Betsy Jolas. Karttunen has transcribed over 60 pieces for cello or various chamber ensembles, such as Johannes Brahms's Piano Quintet for string quintet and Händel-Variations for string trio, Robert Schumann's Album für die Jugend for string trio, Cello Concerto for cello and string quartet and for cello and string orchestra.

Karttunen regularly performs with various chamber ensembles, including the Sons of Chipotle with John Paul Jones, the Zebra Trio with violinist Ernst Kovacic and violist Steven Dann, a cello-piano duo with Nicolas Hodges, and the Tres Coyotes with Magnus Lindberg and John Paul Jones.

From 1994 to 1998 Karttunen was the artistic director of the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra. He has been artistic director of the Helsinki Biennale (1995, 1997), the Suvisoitto-festival in Porvoo, Finland (1994-1997) and the Musica Nova Helsinki Festival 2015. He was principal cellist of the London Sinfonietta from 1999 to 2005.

Karttunen has directed the Creative Dialogue workshop in Santa Fe, NM and Järvenpää, Finland since 2007 with Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg. In 2021 he created the Creative Dialogue France held in the Chateau de Beauchêne. He teaches at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris.

Together with Kaija Saariaho, Jean-Baptiste Barrière and Muriel von Braun, Karttunen created www.petals.org, a nonprofit organisation for distributing music in different forms over the internet.

In 2019 he co-founded the ensemble Sons of Chipotle with John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame. [1] The group premiered with concerts in Seoul, South Korea, and at the Pit Inn in Tokyo, Japan, that year, joined by musicians Jim O'Rourke and Otomo Yoshihide. [2] The ensemble was scheduled to play its first U.S. date in March 2020 at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee, but the festival was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. [1]

Karttunen's teachers included Erkki Rautio, William Pleeth, Jacqueline du Pré and Tibor de Machula. He plays a cello by Francesco Ruggeri.

Karttunen lives in Paris and is married to the Venezuelan-Finnish painter and sculptor Muriel von Braun.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oliver Knussen</span> British composer and conductor

Stuart Oliver Knussen was a British composer and conductor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esa-Pekka Salonen</span> Finnish orchestral conductor and composer

Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish conductor and composer. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaija Saariaho</span> Finnish composer (1952–2023)

Kaija Anneli Saariaho was a Finnish composer based in Paris, France. During the course of her career, Saariaho received commissions from the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet and from IRCAM for the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the BBC, the New York Philharmonic, the Salzburg Music Festival, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and the Finnish National Opera, among others. In a 2019 composers' poll by BBC Music Magazine, Saariaho was ranked the greatest living composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magnus Lindberg</span> Finnish composer and pianist

Magnus Gustaf Adolf Lindberg is a Finnish composer and pianist. He was the New York Philharmonic's composer-in-residence from 2009 to 2012 and has been the London Philharmonic Orchestra's composer-in-residence since the beginning of the 2014–15 season.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sibelius Academy</span> Music university in Helsinki, Finland

The Sibelius Academy is part of the University of the Arts Helsinki and a university-level music school which operates in Helsinki and Kuopio, Finland. It also has an adult education centre in Järvenpää and a training centre in Seinäjoki. The Academy is the only music university in Finland. It is among the biggest European music universities with roughly 1,400 enrolled students.

Philip Cashian is an English composer. He is the head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music.

Esteban Benzecry is an Argentine classical composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pekka Kuusisto</span> Finnish musician

Pekka Kuusisto is a Finnish musician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kari Kriikku</span> Musical artist

Kari Kriikku is a Finnish classical clarinetist.

Steven Dann is a Canadian violist.

Jukka Santeri Tiensuu is a Finnish contemporary classical composer, harpsichordist, pianist and conductor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ondine (record label)</span> Finnish record label

Ondine is a Finnish classical record label founded in 1985 in Helsinki, Finland. Its catalogue with several award-winning releases includes over 600 titles with major Finnish and international artists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tomi Räisänen</span> Finnish composer (born 1976)

Tomi Räisänen is a Finnish composer.

Charlotte Bray is a British composer. She was championed by the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London Sinfonietta and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, BBC Symphony Orchestra. Her music has been performed by many notable conductors such as: Sir Mark Elder, Oliver Knussen, Daniel Harding, and Jac van Steen.

The Avanti! Chamber Orchestra is a Finnish ensemble that focuses on contemporary music. The ensemble when it performs varies in size from a solo player to a symphony orchestra. Avanti! Chamber Orchestra won the Gramophone Prize with their first recording. The Orchestra also holds a music festival of its own each summer.

Kirsten Soriano was born April 19, 1979. She is an American composer from White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Her music has been performed by the Kronos Quartet string quartet, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra MusicNOW Ensemble, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, The Crossing choral ensemble, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente and the Jack Quartet string quartet. In 2013, she was appointed assistant professor at the University of North Texas and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2020. She has served as director of undergraduate studies in the college of music at the University of North Texas since 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sebastian Fagerlund</span> Finnish composer

Sebastian Fagerlund is a Finnish composer. He is described as “a post-modern impressionist whose sound landscapes can be heard as ecstatic nature images which, however, are always inner images, landscapes of the mind”. Echoes of Western culture, Asian musical traditions, and heavy metal have all been detected in his music.

Notes on Light is a cello concerto by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. The work was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was first performed at Symphony Hall, Boston on February 22, 2007, by the cellist Anssi Karttunen and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste.

Petals is a piece of spectral music composed by Kaija Saariaho for cello and live electronics. It is one of the works studied in the Edexcel syllabus for the A-Level in Music. It has been recorded both by its dedicatee, Anssi Karttunen, on the Finlandia label and by the cellist Wilhelmina Smith on the Ondine label.

References

  1. 1 2 "John Paul Jones' Sons of Chipotle Announce First U.S. Show".
  2. "John Paul Jones forms new band Sons of Chipotle". 24 July 2019.