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Finnish virtuoso Paavali Jumppanen has established himself in recent seasons as an imaginative and versatile musician of seemingly unlimited capability who has already cut a wide swath internationally as an orchestral and recital soloist, recording artist and artistic director, as well as a frequent performer of contemporary and avant-garde music, commissioning numerous works. He leads curation at the Väyläfestival, a multi-arts festival in Scandinavia and is the Artistic Director at the Australian National Academy of Music.
He has performed extensively worldwide, collaborating with conductors including David Robertson, Sakari Oramo, Susanna Mälkki, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Rafael Payare. He frequently collaborates with the Finnish Radio Symphony and the Helsinki Philharmonic orchestras. Within Australia, he has directed the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra from the piano and appeared with the Tasmanian and West Australian symphony orchestras, and for the Canberra International Music Festival and the Adelaide Festival, also curating its 2023 Chamber Landscapes program.
In the recent years Paavali Jumppanen has focused on performing cycles of the complete Beethoven and Mozart piano sonatas, and has frequently performed all of Beethoven’s piano concertos and chamber sonatas. His discography includes an acclaimed album of Boulez’s piano sonatas, made at the composer’s request, and the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas. He has been praised for his ‘power and an extraordinary range of colours’ (New York Times) and the ‘overflowing energy of his musicianship’ (Boston Globe).
He attended the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and later worked with Krystian Zimerman at the Basel Music Academy, where he also studied organ, fortepiano and clavichord. Russian-born pianist Konstantin Bogino has remained an important mentor. As a visiting scholar in Harvard University’s Music Department (2011–12), he studied musicology and theory to deepen his immersion in 18th-century Viennese music.
