b i o g r a p h yr e p e r t o i r er
e v i e w sw e b s i t ewrite
to ManagerElina Vähälä, violinist
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b i o g r a p h yr e p e r t o i r er
e v i e w sw e b s i t ewrite
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Elina Vähälä, violinist |
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b i o g r a p h y...........back to roster....up May 2011 Violinist Elina Vähälä is one of the sought-after instrumentalists in the international music scene. She is the winner of the 1999 Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York and has also won prizes in the Lipinsky-Wieniawski competition in Lublin, Poland already at the age of 15, and in the Joseph Joachim Violin Competition in Hanover, Germany in 2000. 2011/12 engagements include the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Jakub Hrusa, Oregon Symphony under Carlos Kalmar, Helsinki Philharmonic and Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and performances with the Sinfonia Lahti and Okko Kamu at the Sibelius Festival 2011 and tours in Germany and UK. Vähälä has commissioned a violin concerto from composer Jaakko Kuusisto the premiere of which will take place in 2012. Some of her recent highlights were appearances with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Tugan Sokhiev, Oregon Symphony and Carlos Kalmar, Hamburger Camerata and Ralf Gothóni, and performances at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Vähälä has recently launched Violin Academy, a master class based educational project for selected young Finnish violinists. She is a newly appointed professor for violin at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, Germany since October 2009. Vähälä's new string quartet, QUADRION, is making its debut season. Past seasons have taken Elina Vähälä on stages on five continents; she performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, at the MIAGI festival in South Africa and on tours in China and South Korea. She also played Sibelius concerto at Konzerthaus in Berlin and Barbican in London. In December 2008 Vähälä performed at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and concert when president Ahtisaari was awarded. The television broadcast of the Nobel concert was distributed to 300 million households in 100 countries. Vähälä made her orchestra debut at the age of 12 with the Sinfonia Lahti. Conductor Osmo Vänskä, later, chose her as Sinfonia Lahti’s “Young Master Soloist”. Since then she has collaborated with this Gramophone Award-winning orchestra regularly. Vähälä has formed another special partnership with the legendary English Chamber Orchestra, with which she has performed around the world; in the United Kingdom, Finland, France, South Africa, Poland, Turkey, Greece, Caribbean, and in Spain, where she shared the stage with Maxim Vengerov. Vähälä gave her New York debut in 1999 under the auspices of Young Concert Artists, and the concert received acclaim in The New York Times. Since then she has performed around the United States as soloist and chamber musician. Vähälä’s repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary. She gave world premieres of Aulis Sallinen's Chamber Concerto and Curtis Curtis-Smith's Double Concerto, both written for her and pianist-conductor Ralf Gothóni. Vähälä also gave the Scandinavian premiere of John Corigliano’s Violin Concerto “The Red Violin”. As a devoted chamber musician, Vähälä’s partners include Andras Adorjan, Juri Bashmet, Ana Chumachenco, Chee-Yun, Peter Csaba, Itamar Golan, Ralf Gothóni, Ivry Gitlis, Bruno Giuranna, Gary Hoffman, Steven Isserlis, Frans Helmerson, Cho-Liang Lin, Adam Neiman, Arto Noras, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Alisa Weilerstein. Born in the United States and raised in Finland, Elina Vähälä started to play the violin at the age of three at the Lahti Conservatory after getting inspired by a higly popular TV-series “Minifiddlers in Musicland”, featuring young children playing the violin. She also studied under the guidance of Zinaida Gilels, Ilja Grubert and Pavel Vernikov at the Kuhmo Violin School. In 1994–1999 Vähälä studied at the Sibelius Academy with Tuomas Haapanen and received her diploma in 1999. In 1998 she also attended classes of Ana Chumachenco in Munich. Vähälä plays an Antonio Stradivari violin, built in 1678 and generously loaned by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
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. r e p e r t o i r e...........back to roster....up
KALEVI AHO ALEXANDER ARUTIUNIAN JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH SAMUEL BARBER BÉLA BARTÓK LUDVIG VAN BEETHOVEN JOHANNES BRAHMS BENJAMIN BRITTEN MAX BRUCH ERNEST CHAUSSON JOHN CORIGLIANO CURTIS CURTIS-SMITH EINAR ENGLUND RALF GOTHÓNI JOSEPH HAYDN NIGEL HESS FELIX MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART SERGEI PROKOFIEV MAURICE RAVEL MIKLÓS RÓZSA CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS AULIS SALLINEN ESA-PEKKA SALONEN PABLO DE SARASATE ALFRED SCHNITTKE JEAN SIBELIUS IGOR STRAVINSKY PJOTR TSAIKOVSKY PETERIS VASKS RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS ANTONIO VIVALDI KURT WEILL HENRYK WIENIAWSKI
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. r e v i e w s...........back to roster....up The Washington Post "Music from France often gets labeled as vaporous, perfumed abstraction. But as violinist Elina Vähälä played Fauré and Debussy at the National Gallery of Art on Sunday evening, the prevailing image wasn't mist -- it was fire. Throughout the program, Vähälä displayed a fondness and talent for hard, fast passages and was impressive not just for her technical proficiency but also for her ability to make them musically and emotionally potent. in Debussy's Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Minor, she teased out playful, mischievous and sensual lines, and in Fauré's Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in A, she was all ardent, jealous romance. The concert closed with Stravinsky's "Suite Italienne", quick crowd-pleasing dances from his neoclassical ballet "Pulcinella", which earned both performers their standing ovation." (with Mika Rännäli, piano, 04/08) .................................................................................................... www.IncidentLight.com "Vähälä invested great care in details of color, inflection and dynamics, giving each note and phrase a weight and shape specific to its place in the whole. That specificity was especially effective in the Debussy, but also in the Stravinsky, whose neoclassicism is often rendered more generically. Vähälä's impeccable aim gave Copland's triadic melodic intervals a chiseled character." (Tuesday Musical Club of San Antonio 03/08) .................................................................................................... The New York Times “Her control of phrasing, and especially the ends of phrases provided evidence of a thoughtful musician who has all the technical accomplishment and confidence she needs to project her thoughts. Her intonation is sure and her tone fine, perfectly formed. In her highly musical performance of the Brahms’s D minor sonata her delicacy of sound and the rythm in the third movement was marvelous, as was the drive in the finale. She breathed each movement, and even the whole sonata, as one.” ................................................................................................... Le Droit, Ottawa “This concert was of exeptional quality. Elina Vähälä’s playing is expressive, sensitive and tempestuous...intense and smooth sound, impeccable intonation, a lively bow arm, all with an easy mastery, a clarity of sonority when each note bursts with life and each phrase leads to the next. Fiery temperament, brilliant and pure playing - in a recital like this one feels that there is a guaranteed future for music.” ................................................................................................... Ottawa Citizen “There was a high level of energy, a careful but passionate attention to detail and a high sense of music’s technical and emotional structure. In Schubert’s Duo for violin and piano one was constantly struck with the suppleness and sheer beauty of the violin sound.” ................................................................................................... Westdeutche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) “...an utterly brilliant interpretation of the work.” ( A. Schnittke: Concerto grosso nr.1, soloists Elina Vähälä and Katrin Scholtz, violins) ................................................................................................... Le Monde “Impeccable accuracy, a sound that sang, radient and luminous; this young woman shows herself to be a soloist of the highest rank whose ease and presence place her among the rising glories of the violin.” (Mendelssohn: Double concerto for violin and piano ) ................................................................................................... The Seattle Times “Vähälä, a Grace Kelly look-alike who cut an exceedingly glamorous figure on the stage, took over as soloist for two Beethoven Romances for Violin and Orchestra. She is a patrician, confident player with a big, smooth tone that poured out the long-lined melodies with true beauty.” ................................................................................................... The Seattle Post “Vähälä has almost a viola depth and richness to her violin sound. Her Beethoven was sensitive, musical and appropriately classical in style.” ................................................................................................... Seesener Beobachter “She understood wonderfully how to X–ray the structure of this concerto. Her playing was about great beauty and at the same time uncommonly simple. [In the finale] she played with great temperament. Marvellous passages and jumps, magical flageolettes and everything in general was mastered by the sympathetic soloist Elina Vähälä.” (Sibelius:Violin concerto) ................................................................................................... Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm “Elina Vähälä's playing was blinding, answering to all the demands of the music in power, virtuosity and soft melancholy. A pure and poetic feeling in the violin tone and fiery involvement in the interpretation. Yes, it was absolutely brilliant...” (Kalevi Aho: violin concerto) ................................................................................................... LA Times, Los Angeles “Vähälä was clearly the evening's star and the Schnittke her showpiece. Both violinist and pianist threw themselves into the sonata...Vähälä offering a vividly athletic performance that managed to appear untamed but was, in fact, perfectly in control.” (Schnittke: Quasi una sonata) ................................................................................................... Seattle Post Intelligencer “Vahala, who has performed with the orchestra before, gave a fine performance of the Mozart concerto, with the orchestra closely attuned to her. Gothoni's and Vahala's was an elegant, modern rendering, and clean technique and keen musicianship marked her playing.” (Mozart: Violin concerto No.5) ................................................................................................... Charleston Gazette, Charleston WV “She consistently opted for a measured approach, always thoughtful, always probing. The first movement was nearly transparent in texture yet still painted with gorgeous tonal colors. The finale had the same clarity, but with ample wattage added to the playing when needed. Indeed Vahala kept adding heat to her playing toward the end drawing some astonishing powerful sounds from her 1678 Stradivarius.” (Mendelssohn: Violin concerto E minor, 03/2007) ................................................................................................... Daily Mail, Charleston, WV “Violinist fiddles like the devil, and the results are heavenly Finnish violinist Elina Vahala uses her 1678 Stradivarius violin as a musical weapon. Felix Mendelssohn's violin concerto is fiendishly difficult from a technical standpoint and gives a soloist the opportunity to either sink or swim many times throughout the three-movement work. Vahala's handling of the work proves her Olympic style of swimming in a giant pool of musical sharks -- and never once did she receive a bite. Moreover, the work is intensely musical, as Mendelssohn's music usually is, which allowed the superb orchestral accompaniment to tease Vahala into singing like an angel while fiddling like the devil.” (Mendelssohn: Violin concerto E minor, 03/2007) |
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