Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, YMF 2002
![[MAJ Piano Trio]](images/older/maj1.jpg)
The MAJ Piano Trio is a dynamic young line-up that made its debut in China in 1997, when the Finnish Embassy in Shanghai invited it to perform on Finland’s Independence Day. In autumn 2000, the Trio, the members of which are all students at the Sibelius Academy, was the winner of the first Erkki Melartin Chamber Music Competition in Savonlinna. It is coached by Professor Paavo Pohjola, regularly attends masterclasses with Professor Ralf Gothoni and has also studied with cellist Marko Ylönen and pianist Ilmo Ranta. The Trio has appeared in Finland at the Riihimäki Summer Concerts, the 2001 Turku Music Festival and elsewhere. In spring 2001 it gave a recital at the Riga Chamber Music Festival in Latvia, and in autumn 2001 at the European Piano Forum in Berlin. It received a scholarship from the Pro Musica foundation in 1998.
Anna Laakso began taking piano lessons at the Riihimäki Music Institute when she was four and in 1995 proceeded to the Junior Sibelius Academy where her teacher was Carlos Juris. She has been in the Department of Solo Performance at the Academy since 1998, a pupil of Tuija Hakkila and Heini Kärkkäinen since autumn 2001, and has attended masterclasses with Liisa Phjola, Laszlo Simon, Jose Ribera, Alexander Volkov, Konstantin Bogino and others. At home in Finland, she has given recitals and held solo engagements with orchestras and distinguished herself in the field of chamber music. A recording by her of Sibelius’s Malinconia with her brother Joel Laakso has been released on the Ondine label. In spring 2002, she will be accompanying Pia Komsi, soprano, in a recital in the Taidekoti Kirpilä Lieder series.
Maija Linkola began her violin studies with Riitta Poutanen at the West Helsinki Music Institute, continuing at the Junior Sibelius Academy in 1885, and later in the Department of Solo Performance, where her teachers have been Igor Bezrodnyi and Mari Tampere. A freelancer and active chamber musician, she has played with the Virtuosi di Kuhmo for several years. Further proof of her versatility is the fact that she has for the past year of so played the violin for musical performances at the Helsinki City Theatre.
![[Timo-Veikko Valve]](images/older/maj2.jpg)
Timo-Veikko Valve, who replaces the Trio’s regular cellist, Joel Laakso, in this visit to Halifax, began his cello studies at the age of 6 at the West Helsinki Music Institute. Since autumn 1997, he has been studying at the Sibelius Academy where his teachers have been Keiki Rautasalo and Maarko Ylönen. He has participate in a number of masterclasses – with Natalia Gutman, Gary Hoffman, Steven Isserlis, Frans Helmerson and Lluis Calret – and has also studies chamber music with Teemu Kupianinen, Vladimir Mendelssohn and Vjatseslav Novikov. Timo-Veikko has performed with many orchestras in Scandinavia, including the Bergen Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Helsinki String Chamber Orchestra, and has also appeared both as a soloist and a chamber musician throughout Europe, in South Africa and the United States. In 1994, Timo-Veikko was a finalist at the Moscow International Competition for Young Soloists, was awarded the First Prize in the Finnish Juvenalia Chamber Music Competition in 1998 and in June 2000, the Second Prize in the Eurovision Grand Prix for Young Musicians. He is a founding member of the Helsinki Cello Ensemble which released its first CD Cellos Galore in December 2000.