Joonas Ahonen

Pianist Joonas Ahonen has rapidly gained attention in his native Finland and beyond for brilliant performances of contemporary music as a solo recitalist, concerto soloist, and chamber musician. He has also played the music of Beethoven on historical instruments. Ahonen was born in Kerava, Finland, on April 9, 1984. He studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with Liisa Pohjola and Tuija Hakkila. There, he developed an interest in contemporary composers, and in 2011, he became a member of the progressive instrumentalists' collective Klangforum Wien in Austria. He has performed and recorded with violinist Pekka Kuusisto and in larger chamber ensembles, and he appeared at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Ireland. An appearance at the Davos Festival in Switzerland helped propel a broader awareness of Ahonen's work. In 2015, he made his recording debut on the CD Accord label with the album Dream Lake, a collaboration with soprano Agata Zubel on songs by Lutoslawski and Andrzej Czajkowski that won a major Polish recording industry award. As a soloist, he has appeared with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Tapiola Sinfonietta, as well as with the avant-garde groups Avanti! and Ictus. Ahonen recitals have taken place at such major venues as the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Wiener Konzerthaus, and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Ahonen moved to the BIS label in 2017 and released albums devoted to Ligeti and Ives (he is one of few European pianists to record the works by the latter). The recording of the Piano Concerto of György Ligeti was named a favorite album of 2017 by AllMusic. Among the critical raves bestowed upon his live performances was this one from The Irish Examiner: "The second book of Ligeti etudes, a set of small but epically conceived virtuosic works, was mind-blowing under Ahonen's fingers." He has also appeared on several well-regarded chamber music albums on the Neos, Kairos, and Col Legno labels. After a second Ives sonata recording in 2021, Ahonen joined violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja in 2022 on the Alpha label for the album Le Monde selon George Antheil. ~ James Manheim, Rovi