Anssi Karttunen

Anssi Karttunen has always been on the cutting edge of classical music performance and is one of the most innovative cellists in today’s international music scene. He started learning the cello as a 4-year-old in Finland, a uniquely fertile ground for music and musicians, and subsequently built up a worldwide reputation both as a soloist and chamber musician. In his repertoire, he takes a fresh look at the work of well-known composers and brings forgotten masterpieces to the public ear, as well as his own original transcriptions. He plays on modern, classical, and baroque cellos, as well as the violoncello piccolo.

Anssi Karttunen is a passionate advocate of contemporary music. He has performed over 160 world premieres, collaborating with such composers as Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho, Rolf Wallin, Luca Francesconi and Tan Dun. An astounding 29 concertos have been written for him. He premiered Magnus Lindberg’s Cello Concerto No.1 with the Orchestre de Paris (1999) as well as his Cello Concerto No. 2 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (2013), Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Mania with Avanti! (2000), Martin Matalon’s cello concerto with the Orchestre National de France (2001) and Luca Francesconi’s Rest with the RAI Torino (2004). Kaija Saariaho wrote the concerto Notes on Light for Karttunen, which he premiered with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who commissioned the work, in February 2007. He subsequently performed the concerto with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, and the New World Symphony. Future premieres will include works by Denis Cohen, Pascal Dusapin, Jérôme Combier, Betsy Jolas, Oliver Knussen, Fred Lerdahl, Magnus Lindberg, Thierry Pécou and Sean Shepherd, as well as a very special project with the Led Zeppelin legend John Paul Jones.

Anssi Karttunen has worked with world-renowned orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, BBC Symphony, NHK Orchestra, Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Ensemble Modern, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and many more. He also performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician at Europe’s most important music festivals, including Edinburgh, Salzburg, Lockenhaus, Berlin, Venice, Strasbourg and Helsinki. His Zebra Trio, with violinist Ernst Kovacic and violist Steven Dann, performs concerts on both sides of the Atlantic. He also enjoys a close collaboration with pianist Nicolas Hodges and choreographer Diana Theocharidis.

His recordings traverse a broad musical spectrum, including Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano on period instruments, 20th century solo pieces, and concertos performed with the London Sinfonietta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen. He has released recordings of concertos by Lindberg, Saariaho, and Salonen on Sony Classical and a DVD of Tan Dun's The Map for cello, video and orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon. Two of Anssi Karttunen’s recordings were nominated for a Gramophone Award in 2013: a CD of Magnus Lindberg’s chamber music works, recorded with the composer and the clarinettist Kari Kriikku on Ondine; and Henri Dutilleux’ Tout un monde lointain, recorded with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Esa-Pekka Salonen on Deutsche Grammophon, which was chosen as the best contemporary recording of 2013. His recent recordings include his own transcriptions of Bach and Telemann; Brahms’ String Quintet for Toccata Classics; and two tango CDs, released on Petals and Albany.

Born in 1960, Anssi Karttunen studied with Erkki Rautio, William Pleeth, Jacqueline du Pré and Tibor de Machula, among others. From 1999 until 2005 he was principal cellist with the London Sinfonietta. He was the Artistic Director of the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra between 1994 and 1998 the Suvisoitto Festival in Porvoo, Finland from 1994 until 1997. He was the artistic director of the Helsinki Biennale in 1995 and 1997 and the Festival Musica Nova Helsinki in 2015.

He frequently gives masterclasses, for example at Carnegie Hall in 2012 with Kaija Saariaho and at the 2012 Cello Biennial Amsterdam. At the University of Berkeley, he taught and performed as a Regents’ Lecturer in the autumn of 2015. In 2008, he initiated the annual Creative Dialogue workshop at Santa Fe in collaboration with the Sibelius Academy. He started teaching at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris in the autumn of 2014. Anssi Karttunen plays on a Francesco Ruggeri cello.

2017/2018 season

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