Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, and music director of the San Francisco Symphony.
Einojuhani Rautavaara was a Finnish composer of classical music. Among the most notable Finnish composers since Jean Sibelius (1865–1957), Rautavaara wrote a great number of works spanning various styles. These include eight symphonies, nine operas and twelve concertos, as well as numerous vocal and chamber works. Having written early works using 12-tone serial techniques, his later music may be described as neo-romantic and mystical. His major works include his first piano concerto (1969), Cantus Arcticus (1972) and his seventh symphony, Angel of Light (1994).
The Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47 of Jean Sibelius, originally composed in 1904 and revised in 1905, is the only concerto by Sibelius. It is symphonic in scope and included an extended cadenza for the soloist which takes on the role of the development section in the first movement.
Paavo Allan Engelbert Berglund was a Finnish conductor and violinist.
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.
Gerard Schwarz, also known as Gerry Schwarz or Jerry Schwarz, is an American symphony conductor and trumpeter. As of 2019, Schwarz serves as the Artistic and Music Director of Palm Beach Symphony and the Director of Orchestral Activities and Music Director of the Frost Symphony Orchestra at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami.
Leif Selim Segerstam is a Finnish conductor, composer, violinist, violist and pianist, especially known for writing 352 symphonies as of March 2023, along with other works in his extensive oeuvre.
Ilya Kaler is a Russian-born violinist. Born and educated in Moscow, Kaler is the only person to have won Gold Medals at all three of the International Tchaikovsky Competition ; the Sibelius ; and the Paganini.
Leonidas Kavakos is a Greek violinist and conductor. As a violinist, he has won prizes at several international violin competitions, including the Sibelius, Paganini, Naumburg, and Indianapolis competitions. He is an Onassis Foundation scholar. He has also recorded for record labels such as Sony/BMG and BIS. As a conductor, he was an artistic director of the Camerata Salzburg and has been a guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Okko Tapani Kamu is a Finnish orchestral conductor and violinist.
Pekka Kuusisto is a Finnish musician.
Augustin Hadelich is an Italian-German-American Grammy-winning classical violinist.
Erich Gruenberg was an Austrian-born British violinist and teacher. Following studies in Israel, he was a principal violinist of major orchestras, including the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He was an international soloist, playing the first performance of Britten's Violin Concerto in Moscow. As a chamber musician, he was leader of the London String Quartet and recorded all Beethoven violin sonatas with pianist David Wilde. He was the lead violinist for The Beatles' album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Gruenberg taught at the Royal Academy of Music until age 95, influencing generations of violinists.
Judith Aller is an American-born violinist, the daughter of pianist Victor Aller.
Elina Vähälä is a Finnish classical violinist.
Oscar Ravina, born in Warsaw, Poland, was a violinist, violin teacher and concertmaster based in New York, who has had a prolific career as a performer as well as being a current professor emeritus at Montclair State University, where a talent grant in his name is regularly given to outstanding full-time freshmen studying string instruments.
Andrés Cárdenes is a Cuban-born violinist, violist, teacher, conductor, and concertmaster. He has performed and taught in a number of prominent positions, including his current professorship in violin at Carnegie Mellon University School of Music where he holds the Dorothy Richard Starling & Alexander Speyer Jr. Endowed Chair. He is also the current Artistic Director of the Carnegie Mellon University Philharmonic.
David Chan is an American violinist and a concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. In recent years he has become active as a conductor.
Julian Schwarz is an American cellist of Austrian descent who graduated from Juilliard School. Schwarz is currently on the cello faculty of Eastern Music Festival and as of August 2017, the assistant professor of cello at Shenendoah Conservatory. He won the 2013 inaugural Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition in Hong Kong and the 2016 Boulder International Chamber Music Competition's "The Art of Duo" with pianist Marika Bournaki.
Brinton Averil Smith is an American cellist.
