Aapo Häkkinen
began his musical education as a chorister at Helsinki Cathedral. He took up the harpsichord at the age of thirteen, studying with Elina Mustonen and Olli Porthan (organ) at the Sibelius Academy. From 1995 to 1998 he studied with Bob van Asperen at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatory and from 1996 to 2000 with Pierre Hantaï in Paris. He was also fortunate to enjoy the generous guidance and encouragement of Gustav Leonhardt.

Immediately after obtaining his diploma in 1998, Aapo Häkkinen won second prize and the VRT prize at the Bruges International Harpsichord Competition. He was also awarded the Norddeutscher Rundfunk special prize Musikpreis 1997 for his interpretations of Italian music. Häkkinen has appeared as soloist in Scandinavia, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England, Ireland, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Czechia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Turkey, Israel, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, China, Korea, and Vietnam (Festival de La Roque-d'Anthéron, Konzerthaus Berlin, Dresdner Musikfestspiele, Göttinger Händel-Festspiele, Kölner Philharmonie, Rheingau Musik Festival, Bachfest der Neuen Bachgesellschaft, London Lufthansa Festival, Wigmore Hall, Edinburgh Festival, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Utrecht Early Music Festival, Flanders Festival, Bergen Festival, Eszterháza Haydn Festival, Washington Library of Congress, St Petersburg Early Music Festival, Warsaw Philharmonia, Cracow Philharmonia, Forum Musicum Wroclaw, Madrid Auditorio Nacional, Culturgest Lisbon, Gulbenkian Música, Centro Cultural de Belém, Musik Meran, Bolzano Festival, Dubrovnik Festival, Israel Festival, Tokyo Suntory Hall, Musashino Cultural Foundation, Tianjin Grand Theatre, Changsha Concert Hall, Pyeongchang Festival, Tongyeong Concert Hall, Festival Internacional Cervantino, Kuhmo Chamber Music, Helsinki Festival...)

Aapo Häkkinen is also known as a distinguished chamber musician and director (Musica Aeterna, Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico di Vicenza, Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, Os Músicos do Tejo, Capella Cracoviensis, Croatian Baroque Ensemble, Academia Música Antigua de Cantabria, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Tampere Filharmonia, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Lapland, Jyväskylä Sinfonia, Espoo Baroque, Tirgu Mures Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, Novosibirsk Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra, Tallinn Baroque Orchestra, Cork Baroque Orchestra, Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Helsinki Chamber Choir, Key Ensemble, Camerata Coral de la Universidad de Cantabria, Voces Caelestes) in collaboration with artists such as Max Emanuel Cenčić, Reinhard Goebel, Ilya Grubert, Werner Güra, Pierre Hantaï, Erich Höbarth, Soile Isokoski, Topi Lehtipuu, Julia Lezhneva, Riccardo Minasi, Alexander Rudin, Carolyn Sampson, Dmitry Sinkovsky, and Andrew Staples. He has conducted the modern premieres of Hasse's Irene and Koželuch's Gustav Wasa (dir. Ville Sandqvist), Handel's Acis and Galatea (dir. Vilppu Kiljunen) and Haydn's L'Isola disabitata (dir. Johanna Freundlich) for the Finnish Chamber Opera, Carissimi's Jephte (dir. Juha Mustanoja) for Kokkola Opera, Pergolesi's La Serva padrona (dir. Ozren Prohić) for the Croatian National Theatre, Telemann's Pimpinone (dir. Ville Saukkonen) for Rovaniemi Korundi, Handel's Alcina (dir. Vilppu Kiljunen) for Vaasa Baroque, Paisiello's La Serva padrona (dir. Ville Saukkonen) for Les Lumières, and Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea (dir. Vilppu Kiljunen) for the Finnish National Opera.

Aapo Häkkinen has recorded for the labels Aeolus, Alba, Avie, Cantus, Deux-Elles, Naxos, and Ondine, and for numerous European radio and television companies. A writer and broadcaster about many aspects of the early music world, Häkkinen hosts his own programme on Classic FM in Finland. Besides the harpsichord, he regularly performs on the organ, on the clavichord, and on the fortepiano. He has commissioned, given premières, and recorded music by Lucio Garau, Eero Hämeenniemi, Mário Laginha, Jyrki Linjama, Jukka Tiensuu, and Tapio Tuomela. Aapo Häkkinen has edited a series of 17th century Florentine keyboard music for Ut Orpheus Edizioni. He teaches at the Sibelius Academy and at international masterclasses (Tokyo University of Arts, Universidad Nacional de México, Kulturstiftung Marienmünster, Bratislava, Sofia, Tallinn, Tampere, Turku, Zagreb Academies of Music). He is Artistic Director of the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and of the Helsinki Musiikkitalo Early Music Series as well as the Janakkala Baroque Festival.

Erich Höbarth
studied violin with Grete Biedermann and Franz Samohyl, and with Sándor Végh at the Mozarteum University Salzburg.

From 1978 to 1980 Höbarth was a member of the famous Végh Quartet, and was subsequently concert master of the Wiener Symphoniker for seven years. He was first violin of the Vienna String Sextet from 1980 to 2005 and, since 1987, has been first violin of the string quartet Quatuor Mosaïques. He was concert master and soloist in the ensemble Concentus Musicus Wien under Nikolaus Harnoncourt from 1983, and held the same position with Cappella Andrea Barca under András Schiff. Moreover, he served as musical director of the Camerata Bern from 2001 to 2010. Höbarth has taught at the Graz and Vienna Universities of Music, as well as the Leipzig University of Music.

Alexander Rudin
is an internationally acclaimed cellist, conductor, pianist, harpsichordist, professor at the Moscow Conservatoire, researcher of early scores, author of orchestral versions of chamber works and the mastermind behind unique themed series. The musician’s repertoire includes cello music from four centuries – both pieces that are exceedingly well-known and others that have never been performed before. Thanks to Rudin’s attention to forgotten episodes in the history of music, music-lovers throughout the world have heard many new works for the first time. These include Mikhail Vielgorsky’s Theme and Variations for cello and orchestra, cello concerti by Antonín Kraft, Jean Balthazar Trickler, Johann Heinrich Facius and Robert Volkmann, Dvořák’s First Cello Concerto and original versions of works for cello and orchestra by Tchaikovsky – Variations on a Rococo Theme and Pezzo capriccioso. Much of Rudin’s repertoire features works by contemporary composers including Valentin Silvestrov, Vyacheslav Artyomov, Edison Denisov and Andrei Golovin.

Having received a traditional academic education, Alexander Rudin became interested in the authentic performance of early music, and in time came to a natural synthesis of moth movements. He currently combines performances on a modern cello and a viola da gamba and he performs both music by the Romantic composers and works from the baroque era and early classicism. Rudin’s activities as a pianist and conductor are developing in much a similar manner.

Since 1988 the musician has been Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Musica Viva Moscow chamber orchestra. Together with the ensemble, in Moscow he has presented unique concert programmes, many of which have been held during the subscription series Masterpieces and Premieres and Musical Gatherings at the Tretyakovs’ House, subscription series at the Moscow International House of Music and the Russian Gnessin Academy of Music and the Dedication festival.

The conductor has earned a reputation as a brilliant interpreter of opera scores and major works in the cantata and oratorio genre. In Moscow, he has conducted the Russian premieres of the oratorio Juditha triumphans by Vivaldi and an original version of Degtyarev’s oratorio Minin and Pozharsky, or the Liberation of Moscow. There have been performances of Haydn’s oratorios The Creation and The Seasons, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 2 (Hymn of Praise) and concert versions of the operas Idomeneo by Mozart and Oberon by Weber.