Play chamber music!

As if he had leapt from a Nordic tale, he is how I envisage the youngest child of a woodland family of elves to be. In a stripey T-shirt, with ruffled blond hair, sparkling eyes, and making magic with the violin in his hands. When needed, he chases demons. When required, he gives energy, or simply radiates happiness with his being. "Pekka Kuusisto is the best thing happening in classical music today," announced the Guardian in 2007, and if anyone thinks that the dark clouds of gloom are gathering in the firmament of classical music, then they only have to think of the Finnish violin prodigy, now in his thirties, as the custodian of light.

Pekka Kuusisto (photo: Kaapo Kamu)

His grandfather was a musician (composer and organist), his father is a well-known opera composer in Finland, his mother a music teacher, his brother a violinist, conductor and composer, his two sisters are dancers and one of his brother-in-laws is a jazz pianist. So the roots of his musical open-mindedness can be found at home. Although he exploded into the world of Finnish and international music at the age of 19 when he became the first Finn to win the International Jean Sibelius Violin Competition, he participates with equal dedication in folk music, pop or jazz productions as he does when playing Bach, Mozart and Sibelius.

He hates the expression "crossover". He feels that that contains the implication that there are boundaries between different genres. These, according to Kuusisto, exist only in our heads. But he not only believes this, he can prove the truth of his proposition. Should anyone doubt this, look on the internet for two short videos which show Kuusisto playing in the café of the WQXR classical music radio station in New York: in one he plays a Finnish folksong (he plucks the violin like a guitar and sings the melody with stunning naturalness, feeling and intensity); on the other he plays the Sarabande movement from Johann Sebastian Bach's solo Partita in D minor. Astonishingly. With infinite freedom, tasteful ornamentation and restraint. And for this reason, with a truly dramatic violin tone. And of course, just wearing a stripey T-shirt!

Pekka Kuusisto (photo: Sonja Werner)

In 2013 he was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize which was created by the Scandinavian countries. Following the gala concert, a journalist asked him what advice he would give to aspiring young musicians. He did not think long over the answer: "Play a lot of chamber music. I recommend that for every problem. If you are hungry, play chamber music. If your television has gone wrong, play chamber music!" The power of his classical music performances is perhaps thus explained, because for him, a Bach concerto or a Steve Reich composition is chamber music.

In 2006, partnering Katalin Kokas, he performed Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante at the Palace of Arts under the baton of Zoltán Kocsis. Seven years later he returned there as concert master of the Britten Sinfonia; in 2012 he was delighted to play at the Kaposvár International Chamber Music Festival and in spring 2014 will perform as a soloist in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy. He may not wear a stripey T-shirt, but we can count on him working his magic.

Gergely Fazekas