Lilja Haatainen

Violin

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Lilja Haatainen Biography 2025/26.docx

At just fifteen years old, Lilja Haatainen is already developing a strong reputation for her striking sound and assured stage presence. She has appeared as a soloist with many Finnish orchestras, including Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Finnish Chamber Orchestra, Jyväskylä Sinfonia, Oulu Symphony Orchestra, Espoo City Orchestra and Vaasa City Orchestra, as well as in Germany with the Jena Philharmonic Orchestra. Her conductor collaborations include Nicholas Collon, Dalia Stasevska, Kristian Sallinen and Rumon Gamba.

During the summer of 2025, Lilja performs both as a soloist and in chamber-music ensembles at several music festivals across Finland, including the Tammisaari Summer Festival. This season she also takes part in the International Chamber Music Festival in Utrecht at the invitation of Janine Jansen. Further highlights include her debuts with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra under Manfred Honeck, as well as with Pori Sinfonietta and Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra.

In March 2025, Lilja was featured on the Dutch classical television programme Podium Klassiek as its ‘Young Hero’, where she was interviewed and performed Pablo de Sarasate’s Zapateado.

Lilja made her concerto debut at the age of eight, when she was selected as a soloist for the Oulu Symphony Orchestra’s Young Soloists concert. In 2022, she won the ten to twelve-year-old category of the national Jyväskylä Violin Competition and, in the same year, was awarded first prize in the nine to thirteen-year-old category of the Louis Spohr International Competition for Young Violinists in Germany.

Born in 2011, Lilja began playing the violin at the age of three. She studied at the Oulu Conservatory until 2022, when she moved to study with Janne Malmivaara. In addition, she is a student of the Finland Violin Academy, a specialist education programme for highly gifted young violinists.

Lilja Haatainen’s violin studies are supported by the Stretton Society, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Pro Musica and the Wihuri Foundation in Finland.