Lotta Wennäkoski

Lotta Wennäkoski (born 1970) studied violin, music theory and Hungarian folk music in the Béla Bartók Conservatory in Budapest before taking music theory and composition at the Sibelius Academy from which she graduated in 2000.  Wennäkoski's debut concert took place at the Musica nova Helsinki festival in 1999. Her latest orchestral piece, Jong, places a very special soloist in front of the chamber orchestra - a juggler. The premier of the piece by the Lapland Chamber Orchestra was in May 2013. Lotta Wennäkoski’s music falls within the Modernist camp, her music expresses itself in lyrical tones. “The music is buoyant and lucid, as if waiting for the listener to jump up and grab hold of its sound world,” writes Karoliina Vesa about Hava (2007) for orchestra. Lotta Wennäkoski says she has always been interested in language and literature, including lyrical poetry. On the other hand, she is not afraid to tackle wild and brutal subjects: her monodrama Lelele (2010–2011) is about forced prostitution and sex slavery.