Anssi Karttunen

Anssi Karttunen (born 1960) is a Finnish cellist.

Karttunen performs with most world-class orchestras in Europe (Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Filarmonica della Scala, RAI Torino, Munich Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra etc.), Asia (NHK Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, Shanghai Symphony, Hong Kong Sinfonietta etc.) and the Americas (Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra etc.) and at major festivals worldwide. His repertoire ranges from the early baroque to the most recent composers. He is particularily known for his collaboration with living composers.

He has given world premieres of over 90 works for cello, among them 18 concertos. He has inspired a large number of present-day composers to dedicate works to him, such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho, Tan Dun, Rolf Wallin and Luca Francesconi. Karttunen has transcribed large number of pieces for cello or various chamber ensembles, most recently Brahms's Piano Quintet for String Quintet and Schumann Cello Concerto for String Quartet and cello.

Between 1994 and 1998 Karttunen was the artistic director of the Avanti! Chamber orchestra in Finland. He was the artistic director of the Helsinki Biennale (1995, 1997) and the Suvisoitto-festival in Porvoo, Finland (1994-1997). He was the principal cellist of the London Sinfonietta (1999-2005).

Karttunen's teachers included Erkki Rautio, William Pleeth, Jacqueline du Pré and Tibor de Machula. He plays a cello by Francesco Ruggieri.

Together with Kaija Saariaho, Jean-Baptiste Barrière and Muriel von Braun, Karttunen created www.petals.org, a non-profit organisation for distributing music in different forms over the internet.

He lives in Paris and is married to the Venezuelan-Finnish painter and sculptor Muriel von Braun.

External links

• Karttunen.org, the cellist's official website
• Petals.org Petals website