Violinist Kurt Nikkanen
October Classical: Atlantic Crossing
All ASO guest artists appear through the generosity of
the Maurice and Dorothy Stubnitz Foundation Guest Artist Fund.
Kurt Nikkanen
American violinist Kurt Nikkanen is an international soloist of the highest order. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, he began his violin studies at the age of three, later studying with Roman Totenberg and Jens Ellerman. At 12 he gave his Carnegie Hall debut, performing with the New York Symphony; two years later he was invited by Zubin Mehta to perform the Paganini Concerto No. 1 with the New York Philharmonic for a Young People's Concert. He studied with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School.
Nikkanen regularly receives invitations from the leading orchestras and presenters in the U.S.A. and Europe and has toured Japan and the Far East. In North America he has appeared with the Dallas Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Cleveland Orchestra, and in Europe with the BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Rotterdam Philhar-monic, and the Dresden Staatskapelle. He has worked with many leading conductors.
An enthusiastic advocate of contemporary music, Nikkanen has given numerous performances of the John Adams Violin Concerto, with orchestras such as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Oregon Symphony, Hallé Orchestra, and Cincinnati Symphony (all under the composer’s direction). Other contemporary projects include Aaron Jay Kernis' Concerto for Violin and Guitar, which he performed at the 1998 Aspen Festival, and H.K. Gruber’s violin concerto Nebelsteinmusik, performed with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under the composer’s direction. With the National Chamber Orchestra of Washington he recorded Steven R. Gerber’s Violin Concerto, which was written especially for him, for Koch International. He also gave the world premiere of John Zorn’s Contes de Fées for violin and chamber orchestra, with the Eos Orchestra of New York.
Highlights of recent seasons have included a U.K. tour with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, performances with the Gothenburg Symphony and Neeme Jarvi at the BBC Proms, and concerts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Prague Symphony, and RTÉ Orchestra in Dublin; also with the Bayerischer Rundfunk and Suddeutscher Rundfunk orchestras, both with Yakov Kreizberg, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra with Junichi Hirokami. He has appeared with the Belgian National Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony, the orchestra of RAI Turin, Detroit Symphony, and the Orchestra of Galicia, Bilbao Symphony, and the Malaysian Philharmonic. He has performed the Dvorák concerto with the Czech Philharmonic and Vladimir Ashkenazy, both in Prague and on tour in the U.S.A., with concerts in New York and Chicago.
Kurt Nikkanen has given recitals at Wigmore Hall and at Lincoln Center, performing “ViolinDances,” a program consisting of pieces composed upon or inspired by dance forms. He recently gave the world première of Mikko Heinio’s Concerto Alla Madre, subsequently recording it for Sony Finland with the Turku Philharmonic under Petri Sakari. He returned to Finland to play Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto with the amalgamated forces of the orchestras of Joensuu and Jyvaskyla in September 2008.