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Jonathan Roozeman, cello

Finnish-Dutch cellist Jonathan Roozeman has established himself as one of the most distinguished musicians of his generation. His exceptionally rich, versatile, and expansive sound serves both the core classical repertoire and lesser-performed works with equal conviction, ranging from Kabalevsky and Kokkonen to Sallinen and Vieuxtemps. Roozeman has appeared as a soloist with numerous leading orchestras and has collaborated with conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Sakari Oramo, Michael Sanderling, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and Klaus Mäkelä.

Recent highlights include performances at the ARK Classical Festival in Tokyo, as well as concerto appearances with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Sinfonia Lahti, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 2025, Roozeman continued his collaboration with Japanese choreographers Saburo Teshigawara and Rihoko Sato in Garden in the Sky, a work that premiered in 2022 at the Aichi Prefectural Art Theater in Nagoya. This interdisciplinary project combines dance and solo cello music, featuring works by Kodály, Bach, and Cassadó.

In 2023, Roozeman’s debut recording of Kalevi Aho’s Cello Concerto No. 2, released by BIS Records, received a five-star review from BBC Music Magazine. His highly anticipated new album, to be released by BIS Records in 2025, features newly commissioned works by Sauli Zinovjev and Cecilia Damström, as well as solo cello compositions by Sebastian Fagerlund, Lauri Porra, and Outi Tarkiainen.

As a recitalist, Roozeman has appeared at the Konzerthaus Berlin as part of Sir András Schiff’s residency and has toured Canada, including a performance in the prestigious Vancouver Recital Series. Other notable appearances include the Ark Hills Festival in Tokyo and his recital debut at the Concertgebouw with pianist Varvara.

Roozeman is regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of contemporary Finnish music, and his contribution to the performance of works by Finnish composers has been significant. His long-standing collaboration with Kalevi Aho culminated in the commission of a new Double Concerto for Violin and Cello, which Roozeman premiered in 2024 alongside violinist Christel Lee as soloists with the Oulu Symphony Orchestra.

In 2015, Roozeman became the youngest prizewinner in the history of the International Tchaikovsky Competition. In the same year, he became the first Finnish cellist ever to reach the final of the Naumburg International Cello Competition. He was also a finalist in the 2013 Premio Suggia Competition in Porto and a semi-finalist in the Paulo International Cello Competition. At the Dutch National Cello Competition, Roozeman won Second Prize in 2012.

Roozeman studied at the Sibelius Academy under Martti Rousi, and later continued his studies at the Kronberg Academy and the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar, where his teachers included Frans Helmerson and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) was born into a wealthy middle-class family in Hamburg and from an early age became accustomed to different cultures, both within his family circle and through travels across Europe. Travel formed an important part of the education of an artist and cultivated young gentleman, as one of the ideals of Romanticism was that of the wandering free spirit. Travelling in those days did not mean a weekend getaway; journeys typically lasted for months at a time.

Mendelssohn’s grand tour, undertaken in his early twenties, began in April 1829 in the British Isles, where, as an exceptionally gifted musician, he naturally also gave concerts. From London, he travelled north to Scotland, which proved to be a significant source of inspiration for his compositions. In addition to the overture The Hebrides, Scotland gave rise to the first ideas for his Symphony No. 3 in A minor, later known as the Scottish Symphony. Mendelssohn conceived the opening theme of the work after visiting the ruins of the castle of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, in Edinburgh.

The symphony, however, remained in sketch form for nearly ten years before Mendelssohn returned to it and completed the work in 1841. In fact, it was the last of his five symphonies to be finished. By that time, he no longer emphasized the work’s connection with Scotland, yet the nickname Scottish Symphony has endured. Given its themes that evoke Scottish folk music, the title is by no means unfounded.

Jaakko Kuusisto: Cello Concerto

For Jaakko Kuusisto (1974–2022), who passed away from a brain tumor couple of years ago, a career in music seemed destined from childhood. He was the son of Ilkka Kuusisto and the grandson of Taneli Kuusisto, both prominent names in twentieth-century Finnish composition.

Jaakko Kuusisto grew into an exceptionally versatile musician. He came to public attention at a very young age when he reached the finals of the 1990 Sibelius Violin Competition. Later, conducting and, increasingly, composition became central parts of his career. Audiences in Ostrobothnia enjoyed his work, among other occasions, through the opera Elämälle (For Life), about Oskar Merikanto, performed at the Ilmajoki Music Festival in 2015–2016.

In addition to several operas, Kuusisto’s output is distinguished by orchestral works. His Cello Concerto has already attracted several of Finland’s leading cellists to take on the solo part. The concerto was originally composed for the grand old man of Finnish cello playing, Arto Noras, who premiered it with the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra at the Naantali Music Festival in the summer of 2019.

After the delicate opening by the vibraphone, the slow movement is characterized by an “eternal” melody played by the soloist. Gradually, the music approaches an almost Shostakovich-like expressiveness. The vibraphone returns at the end, creating an enigmatic and calming contrast to the intensity of the central section.

Dobrinka Tabakova: Dawn

Like Jaakko Kuusisto with his Cello Concerto, the Bulgarian-British composer Dobrinka Tabakova (1980–) secured world-class performers for the premiere of her work Dawn. The piece was written for and dedicated to violinist Gidon Kremer, cellist Kristina Blaumane, and the chamber orchestra Kremerata Baltica, made up of young musicians, who gave the première in 2007.

The work was composed to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Kremerata Baltica, founded by Kremer. Dawn was initially conceived as an independent piece, but Tabakova later incorporated it into her trilogy Sun Triptych (2007–2009). Rising string harmonies depict the sunrise, and whether the listener imagines daybreak in nature or in an urban landscape, the effect is beautifully realized.

Tabakova gave the work the subtitle …and she emerged from the lake, with fire in her hands.

Johannes Brahms: Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) cultivated an insatiable interest in music history and the great composers of the past from an early age. He visited libraries to study and copy scores and assembled an extensive collection of manuscripts, early editions, and theoretical writings from different periods. This fascination found one of its clearest expressions in his variations on themes by Joseph Haydn and George Frideric Handel (Op. 56a and Op. 24).

Brahms never descended into writing mere pastiches, however. Instead, he remained faithful to his own Romantic musical language, rooted in the legacy of Ludwig van Beethoven and Robert Schumann.

Both music history and Brahms’s personal history resonate in his final orchestral work, the Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor, Op. 102. Brahms composed it during the summer of 1887 in Hofstetten on the shores of Lake Thun in Switzerland, near Bern.

Six years earlier, Brahms had become estranged from his close friend, violinist Joseph Joachim, after siding with Joachim’s wife during the couple’s marital dispute. When cellist Robert Hausmann asked Brahms to write a cello concerto as a successor to the recently completed Cello Sonata, Op. 99, Brahms saw an opportunity to repair his friendship with Joachim.

Joachim was ready for reconciliation as well and, together with Hausmann, assisted in shaping the solo parts of the new concerto. The première took place in Cologne in October 1887, with Brahms conducting, Joachim playing the violin solo, and Hausmann the cello solo.

The work never achieved the popularity of the Violin Concerto, composed nine years earlier and also written for Joachim. In his final years, Brahms devoted himself mainly to vocal, piano, and chamber music. A projected fifth symphony never progressed beyond scattered sketches.

Concertos for such an unusual combination as violin and cello had rarely been heard since the days of Antonio Vivaldi, and the pairing lends the work something of the character of a Baroque concerto grosso. The concerto’s polyphonic textures also point back to the Baroque period. In the second theme of the first movement, Brahms freely borrows from Violin Concerto No. 22 by the Classical-era Italian composer Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755–1824), one of Joachim’s most admired and frequently performed concertos.

In Brahms’s conception, the soloists do not oppose one another but rather support each other as equal partners throughout the work. Later interpretations have even suggested that the cello represents Brahms himself, while the violin symbolizes Joachim. Brahms, however, modestly referred to the concerto as merely a “funny whim,” and the often rhapsodic character of the solo writing certainly reflects that spirit.

The long, shared melodies of the slow movement provide a striking contrast to the virtuosity of the outer movements. In the rondo finale, however, one can detect a touch of rivalry between the soloists, along with echoes of Hungarian dance rhythms.