|
The Finish harpsichoprdist, Aapo Häkkinen, began his musical education as a chorister at Helsinki Cathedral. He took up the harpsichord at the age of 13, studying with Elina Mustonen and Olli Porthan (organ) at the Sibelius Academy in his native Helsinki. From 1995 to 1998 he studied at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatoire with Bob van Asperen, and from 1996 to 2000 with Pierre Hantaï in Paris. He was also fortunate to enjoy the generous guidance and encouragement of Gustav Leonhardt. Immediately after obtaining his soloist's diploma in 1998, Aapo Häkkinen won second prize and the prize of the Belgian radio and television VRT-3 at the prestigious Bruges International Harpsichord Competition. He was also awarded the Norddeutscher Rundfunk special prize Musikpreis 1997 for his interpretations of Italian music.
Aapo Häkkinen has appeared as a soloist in Scandinavia, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, England, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Estonia, Russia, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Mexico (Festival de La Roque-d'Anthéron, Dresdner Musikfestspiele, Festival de Ligugé, Flanders Festival, Neue Bachgesellschaft: Bachfest, Musica Bayreuth, Greifswalder Bachwoche, Augustinus Muziekcentrum Antwerp, Concerto Belgais, St Petersburg Early Music Festival, Forum Musicum Wroclaw, Antonio il Verso Palermo, Brezice Festival, Zagreb Baroque Festival, Festival de Morelia, Tallinn Baroque Festival, Kuhmo Chamber Music, Helsinki Festival, Vantaa Baroque, Turku Music Festival, Lahti Organ Festival...)
Aapo Häkkinen is also known as a distinguished chamber musician (Opus X, Les Talens Lyriques, La Sfera Armoniosa...) and director (Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, Musica Aeterna Bratislava, Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico di Vicenza, Croatian Baroque Ensemble, Solamente Naturali, Tampere Filharmonia, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Joensuu, Lappeenranta, and Lohja City Orchestras, Sibelius Academy Baroque Orchestra, SataSinfonia, vocal ensemble Lumen Valo, Helsinki Chamber Choir, Tapiola Chamber Choir, Utopia Chamber Choir, Dominante Ensemble), in collaboration with distinguished colleagues such as Enrico Baiano, Pia Freund, Monica Groop, Ilya Grubert, Tommi Hakala, Erich Höbarth, Sirkka-Liisa Kaakinen-Pilch, Anna-Kristiina Kaappola, Maria Cristina Kiehr, Anu Komsi, Topi Lehtipuu, Riccardo Minasi, Susanne Rydén, and Petteri Salomaa. He has conducted staged productions of George Frideric Handel's Acis and Galatea and Haydn's L'isola disabitata for Finnish Chamber Opera, Carissimi's Jephte for Kokkola Opera, and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's La serva padrona for the Croatian National Theatre.
Aapo Häkkinen has recorded for the labels Alba, Avie, Cantus, Deux-Elles, and Naxos, and for European radio and television companies such as BR, MDR, NDR, SR, VRT, CZ, and YLE. Besides the harpsichord, he regularly performs on the organ and on the clavichord. He has commissioned, given the premières, and recorded music for harpsichord and clavichord by the Finnish composer Eero Hämeenniemi, and chamber music by Lucio Garau and Jukka Tiensuu. Aapo Häkkinen has edited a series of Florentine keyboard music for Edition Escobar. He teaches at the Sibelius Academy and at international master classes. He is Artistic Director of the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra (since 2003) and of the early music concert series at the Institut finlandais in Paris.
Recordings of William Byrd's, Girolamo Frescobaldi's, and Joseph Haydn's keyboard music; Medici Harpsichord Book - an anonymous Florentine manuscript attributed to Prince Ferdinando III de' Medici; Deux-Elles; J.S. Bach: Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord (Naxos, released in December 2007). |
