"Petri Kumela is presently the best guitarist in Finland making records"
- YLE (Finnish Broadcasting Company)
"Poetic and masterly"
- Helsingin Sanomat
"Profound and refined"
- Rondo
PETRI KUMELA IS AN INNOVATOR OF THE GUITAR
"In the cover of his new cd, Change is Gonna Come, Petri Kumela poses with a placat on his one-man street barricade. And why not? Kumela if anyone has participated in the growth and change of finnish guitar. Intelligent and many-sided musician, who has enrichened the repertoire with own arrangements as well as with many commissions from finnish composers."
- Hufvudstadsbladet
bio
Petri Kumela, one of Finland’s most versatile and sought-after classical guitarists, is equally at home with period instruments as in working with contemporary composers. In the season 2010-11 besides working in Finland he will perform in Denmark, Russia, México, India and Bhutan.
Petri Kumela studied at the Helsinki Conservatory with Juan Antonio Muro and in Germany with Franz Halász, graduating from the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg-Augsburg in summer 2000. For two years in succession he was awarded a rare DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship to continue studying in the masterclass of Halász. He was the first guitarist to be accepted for the prestigious Meisterklassen programme. To complement these studies he has also attended masterclasses with such teachers as Leo Brouwer, Oscar Chiglia, Alirio Díaz, Eduardo Egüez and David Russell.
Winner of the international Scandinavian Guitar Festival and Stafford Classical Guitar Recital competitions, Petri Kumela has appeared outside Finland in many European countries, South America, the United States and Japan. At home in Finland he has performed at numerous festivals and in many concert series. As a soloist he has collaborated with Juha Kangas, Massimo Lambertini, Hannu Lintu, Yasuo Shinozaki, Dima Slobodeniouk, John Storgårds and other conductors. In addition to giving solo recitals he is an extremely active chamber musician, has appeared in the ranks of Avanti! and the Tampere Raw chamber ensemble, and with many other ensembles and artists.
A musician with a special commitment to contemporary repertoire, Petri Kumela has premiered many works both in Finland and abroad. Among the composers who have dedicated works to him are Paavo Korpijaakko, Uljas Pulkkis, Jan Vainio, Riikka Talvitie, Lotta Wennäkoski and Pehr Henrik Nordgren. His partnership with Nordgren resulted in six new additions to the Finnish repertoire for various instrumental combinations, from a solo work to a concerto.
Petri Kumela’s discs have without exception received great critical acclaim. His first, Recital, was released in 2002, his second, Spellbound Tones (ABCD 218) of works by Pehr Henrik Nordgren in autumn 2005 and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Transcriptions for Guitar (ABCD 244) in 2007. His latest release “Change is Gonna Come” (ABCD 313) is from 2010.
Petri Kumela teaches at the Helsinki Conservatory and the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.