Jukka Rantamäki

I violin, II concertmaster

I can remember which chair I was sitting in at home when my parents asked me whether I would like to start on the violin. I was seven years old and in first grade, and the East Helsinki Music Institute had a new violin teacher, a Hungarian named Géza Szilvay, who was taking new pupils. I remember pretending to think about it before saying yes, even though I had no idea what it meant to ‘start on the violin’.

Seven years down the line, I was in the Junior Department at the Sibelius Academy, and throughout my adolescence I was the Leader of the Helsinki Junior Strings. Then, as now, I felt that it was the orchestra that was my instrument rather than the violin.

After the matriculation examination, I spent some time thinking about what might be more interesting than playing the violin. But come May, I was at the entrance examination for the Sibelius Academy proper, wearing a blue T-shirt with yellow fluff letters that spelled out something that translates roughly as “HOW HORRIBLE!”. The jury was amused and did not count it against me.

In 1986, in the staircase of what was then the Sibelius Academy building, subsequently known as the ‘R building’, behind Parliament House, I saw a large poster that said ‘Come help create a top-class orchestra in Espoo!’ I auditioned for the Espoo City Orchestra, as it then was, and have been 2nd Leader of what is now the Tapiola Sinfonietta since August 1987 when the orchestra was first formed.