Pekka Kuusisto
©Photo: Kaapo Kamu

THEME AND VARIATIONS: PEKKA KUUSISTO

“Our Festival invents new flexible forms for concerts — we then take the most promising ideas to other platforms.”

Pekka Kuusisto

Theme and Variations brings together a selection of projects and concepts that have been created with and inspired by ​‘Our Festival’, which was founded by Pekka Kuusisto and takes place annually in Finland. As Artistic Director, Kuusisto is noted for combining different artforms within one concert programme; for example dance, electronics and light installations, gastronomy and film all feature alongside performances of standard and contemporary repertoire. His innovative programming was recently recognised when ​‘Our Festival’ was awarded Festival of the Year 2011 by Finland Festivals.

One of the key features of Theme and Variations is its flexibility; it can be taken as a whole, or as individual projects. Two specific threads are explored:

- The Reddress Installation (designed by Aamu Song), for which Pekka has curated a series of concerts entitled ​‘Pocket Projects’.

- A selection of chamber and chamber orchestra concerts, which can be taken independently or otherwise performed concurrently with the Reddress installation, within the context of a festival or residency.

Pekka Kuusisto
© Kaapo Kamu
Our Festival website
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Theme and Variations with Pekka Kuusisto: Radial Night © © Mahler Chamber Orchestra
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Pekka Kuusisto - Schubert Club Mix © © Twelve Plus Media

“Pekka Kuusisto [is] a violinist whose rare gift is to become, rather than perform, the music he plays. His playing was marked by the kind of luminous and infectious beauty that comes only from a true marriage of mastery and love.”

(The Guardian, February 2012)

“The Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto, probably the most engaging maverick in classical music today, appeared once to give a startlingly eerie account of Stravinsky’s Airs du rossignol and Marche chinoise, again to supply the piano part in the orchestra’s aptly grotesque romp through the same composer’s Suites Nos 1 and 2 for Small Orchestra; and a third time as a superbly characterful soloist in Adès’s own violin concerto, Concentric Paths.”

(The Times, February 2012)

“The young Finn produced some of the most spontaneous and out-of-the-box violin playing and musical interpretation I have heard…what Kuusisto did with it all was fresh and unpredictable.”

(The Herald, February 2010)