Photo: Stefan Bremer

Matilda Kärkkäinen

Matilda Kärkkäinen (b. 1980) is a Helsinki born pianist, whose journey to become a pianist took a small turn as she begun playing the violin first. Matilda’s first piano lessons were at the age of four following her big brother. When she was six years old her Christmas wish was to get a violin, which then became her main instrument during her primary school years. At the audition for the Youth Department at the Sibelius Academy, she was taken as a pianist student and not as a violinist. At first she almost didn’t take the accepted place, but during her very first lesson with Marita Viitasalo her disappointment turned into huge excitement.

Finally she graduated for Master of Music in 2007 and later in 2017 she gained her doctorate degree from the Sibelius Academy. Other than Viitasalo, her most influential teachers have been Erik T. Tawaststjerna and Heinz Medjjmorec in Vienna.

Nowadays Kärkkäinen is working at her old school as chamber pianist. Her job is her dream job; being able to play with talented students and guide their way towards professional careers as artists.

In her free time Kärkkäinen enjoys good food, petting her American cocker spaniel Sulo, reading and crossword puzzles. She still has her violin, but it has been forgotten in its case. Instead of her violin, she makes sounds with a French Horn, her husband’s instrument of choise, and practises the French Horn repertoire mostly at their cottage.