One of the brightest young instrumental talents to emerge from Finland today, Juho Pohjonen [www.juhopohjonen.com] has attracted great attention as one of the Nordic countries’ most intriguing and talented pianists.

Season highlights for 2012-13 include performances with The Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen, Helsinki Philharmonic with Olari Elts, Bournemouth Symphony with James MacMillan, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with Robert Spano and Iceland Symphony with François-Xavier Roth. At the end of the 2011-12 season, Juho Pohjonen made his debut at the Aspen Music Festival performing Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles with Robert Spano and will work with Spano again this season at Carnegie Hall with Ensemble AJCW. He continues to work with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln having been selected as one of fourteen musicians to join the ‘CMS Two Residency Program for Outstanding Young Artists’ between 2009- 2012.  He performs with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York and Chicago and gives recitals in New York, Washington, D.C., and La Jolla.

Juho has given recitals in Hong Kong, Dresden, Hamburg, Helsinki, London (Wigmore Hall), New York (Carnegie Hall), San Francisco, Vancouver, Warsaw and at the Lucerne Piano, Savonlinna and Bergen festivals.  He has performed with orchestras including Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Danish National, Finnish Radio Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic and Lahti Symphony - with whom he toured Japan.  Most recently, Juho has worked with such conductors as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Marek Janowski, Hugh Wolff and Lionel Bringuier.

Mr. Pohjonen's debut recording Plateaux features a performance of Scandinavian composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen's piano concerto Plateaux pour Piano et Orchestre with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and solo piano piece For Piano. His sensational opening recital at 2010's Music@Menlo Festival led to a recording for the Music@Menlo Live 2010 series entitled Maps and Legends: Disc 8. Works featured on the recording are Mozart's Sonata in A Major, K.331, Grieg's Ballade in g minor in the Form of Variations on a Norwegian Folk Song, Op. 24 and Handel's Suite in B-flat Major.

Juho Pohjonen was selected by András Schiff as the winner of the 2009 Klavier Festival Ruhr Scholarship. In addition, Juho Pohjonen has won numerous prizes in both Finnish and international competitions, including: First Prize at the 2004 Nordic Piano Competition in Nyborg, Denmark, First Prize at the International Young Artists 2000 Concerto Competition, Stockholm, the Prokofiev Prize at the AXA Dublin International Piano Competition 2003, and was a prize winner at The Helsinki International Maj Lind Piano Competition 2002.

Juho’s studies began in 1989, when he entered the Junior Academy of the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki.  He has studied with Meri Louhos and Hui-Ying Liu at the Sibelius Academy, where he completed his Master’s Degree in 2008.  In addition, Juho has participated in several master classes of world-class pianists such as András Schiff, Leon Fleisher, Jacob Lateiner and Barry Douglas.

May 2013