Pekka Niskanen

Principal Clarinet

Pekka Niskanen began his work as principal clarinet of the Lapland Chamber Orchestra in 2000. He started playing the clarinet in Turku’s music classes under the tutelage of Esko Parikka and later continued his studies at the Turku Conservatory, where he studied first under Seppo Salovaara and later under Tapio Liukkonen. He completed a postgraduate degree at the conservatory in 1999. Pekka began his studies at the Sibelius Academy in the autumn of 1998 (degree programme in music performance) and has studied there under Harri Mäki and Kari Kriikku. He completed his diploma in clarinet playing in November 2004 and graduated with a master’s degree in music in the summer of 2008. Pekka has taken part in master classes by, for example, Alan Hacker, Anna-Maija Korsimaa, Kari Kriikku, Roman Guyot, Andrew Marriner and Charles Neidich. In addition, he has completed chamber music studies under Ilmo Ranta and Ralf Gothón, among others. As part of the Erasmus exchange programme, he studied at the Rotterdam Conservatory with Nancy Braithwaite (clarinet) and Henri Bok (bass clarinet) as his teachers. Pekka has played with the Turku and Tampere Philharmonic Orchestras, the Orchestra of Finnish National Opera and Avanti!, among others.