Elina Vähälä (born 15 October 1975,Iowa City,Iowa) is aFinnish classical violinist.
Born in the United States in Iowa City, Iowa, Vähälä began violin studies at the age of three, following her family's return to Finland, at the Lahti conservatory. Her teachers at Lahti included Seppo Reinikainen and Pertti Sutinen. She also studied at the Kuhmo Violin School with Zinaida Gilels,Ilya Grubert andPavel Vernikov. At theSibelius Academy Vähälä's teacher was Tuomas Haapanen.
Vähälä made her concerto debut at age 12 with theLahti Symphony Orchestra (Sinfonia Lahti), conducted byOsmo Vänskä. Vähälä subsequently served as "Young Master Soloist" for the 1993-1994 season with Sinfonia Lahti. Since then, she has regularly collaborated with Sinfonia Lahti on a regular basis, performing as featured soloist on tours in Sweden, UK, South America and Central Europe.
Vähälä was one of the winners of the 1999Young Concert Artists competition in New York. She gave her New York debut at the92nd Street Y in 1999.[1] In 2008, she was chosen to perform at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony which was televised to a worldwide audience.
Vähälä has given world premieres ofAulis Sallinen'sChamber Concerto and Curtis Curtis-Smith'sDouble Concerto, both written for her and her former husbandRalf Gothóni.[2] In addition, Vähälä gave the Nordic first performance ofJohn Corigliano’s Violin ConcertoThe Red Violin and commissioned a new violin concerto from composerJaakko Kuusisto. Both the Corgiliano and Kuusisto concertos were recorded for BIS in 2012 and released in 2013.
In September 2015, Vähälä performed the original 1904 version of theViolin Concerto ofJean Sibelius, the third documented live performance of the original version, with theFinnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted byHannu Lintu.[3] In January 2022, Vähälä gave the North American premiere of the original 1904 version of the Sibelius Violin Concerto in two performances with Osmo Vänskä and theMinnesota Orchestra.[4]
Vähälä is a founding member of the Violin Academy (Viuluakatemia Ry). Funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the academy is a master class based educational project for selected, highly talented young Finnish violinists. Vähälä has been as a professor of violin at theHochschule für Musik Detmold (2009-2012) and at theHochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe (2012-2019). Since the autumn of 2019, she is a professor of violin at theUniversity of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. Vähäla performs on aGiovanni Battista Guadagnini violin from 1780.[5][6]
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