Recital by Laura & Fredrika Mikkola

Photo: Liisa Valonen

Laura Mikkola who lives in Paris began her studies at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. Later on she studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and at the University of Music in Bloomington, Indiana. Laura studied with recognized teachers such as Tapani Valsta (Sibelius-Akatemia), Menahem Pressler (Indiana), Gary Graffman (Curtis), and Ferenc Rados.

Already at the age of 20 she had won many piano competitions: the second prize and the public prize in the prestigious Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition in Brussels, Belgium in 1995, the international M. Maurice Ravel Piano Competition in France in 1988, the Maj Lind Competition in Finland in 1992 and the Unisa Transnet Piano Competition in South Africa in 1994. She was awarded the Finland Prize for Young Artist in 1995.

Since her notable awards Laura Mikkola has had the opportunity to work with the most famous orchestras in the world, such as L.A. Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariinsky Theater Orchestra of St. Petersburg, Radio Sinfonie Orchester Frankfurt, Washington National Symphony Orchestra and Czech Philharmonic. She has worked with top-ranked conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leif Segerstam, Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Pierre Bartholomée and Mikko Franck.

Laura has 64 piano concertos in her repertoire including B. Bartok: Concerto No. 2; S. Rachmaninoff: Concerto No. 3; S. Prokofiev: Concerto No.2. She has played the first performances of several works from composers including E-J Rautavaara, D. Matthews, K. Saariaho, E-S Tüür, E-P Salonen, and J.Tötterström.

In total she has recorded 15 albums. Mikkola’s CD of Rautavaara’s first concerto was the Editor’s Choice of Gramophone.

Since 2003 she has been the artistic director of the Iitti Music Festival in Finland.

Photo: Merja Ollikainen

Fredrika Mikkola was born on 15 October 2007 in Helsinki. She started to play the violin at the age of 3 with Siljamari Heikinheimo in Helsinki and with Sofia Goloboff-Rigoni in Paris. Since 2014, she has been studying with professor Tuomas Haapanen whenever she is staying in Finland. In 2015 she was admitted to the Conservatoire Francis Poulenc in Paris to study with Constantin Bogdanas, and in 2017 to the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Regionale de Paris to study with Florin Szigeti. As of autumn 2020, she has been studying with José Alvarez.

Fredrika performed as soloist with St. Michel Strings and Maestro Okko Kamu at the age of 9. In 2018 she played in an ensemble conducted by composer Gabriel Yared at the Iitti  Music Festival.

She has performed in Finland in Helsinki, Kemijärvi, Rovaniemi, Kuusamo, Iitti Music Festival and Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival; in France in Paris and Saumur; in Italy in Mantua and Cividale del Friuli; and in the USA in Seattle, Benaroya Hall.

Fredrika won the first prize in the Vatelot-Rampal violin competition in Paris in 2020.