Mikko Pitkäpaasi

Cello, sub-principal

I began to engage with music and to study the cello in Lahti. My father played viola with the Lahti City Orchestra for many years. This was also the first professional orchestra that I came into contact with, on a two-week work experience period while at school. I remember it as an inspiring encounter.

Subsequently, I progressed to the Junior Department of the Sibelius Academy, the Edsberg Music Institute in Stockholm and the Tapiola Sinfonietta. My cello teachers have variously included Hannu Kiiski, Frans Helmerson, Alexander Rudin and Heikki Rautasalo, who coached my diploma examination at the Sibelius Academy in 1995. By that time, I had already been playing with the Tapiola Sinfonietta for several years – a huge masterclass for a young musician.

Today, I very much enjoy the music made by my many skilled colleagues. I have found visits to other orchestras to be refreshing and professionally inspiring. For me, the best thing about this job is the first rehearsal of the week when we begin work on new repertoire leading up to a concert. And of course there are the special moments in a concert where everything just comes together and the music takes on a life of its own. Musicians spend their career reaching for the ‘spheres’. As a contrast, in my free time I lead an ordinary life with my family, with outdoor recreation in the forest and on the water, and getting busy in the kitchen.