Soprano Kai Kallastu
studied singing at the Metropolia University in Helsinki and participated
in many master classes. Her teachers have been Malle Raid, Matti Pelo,
Johanna Bister, Irina Gavrilovici, etc. Kai has performed as a opera
singer, music theatre artist, chamber musician and soloist of orchestral
concerts. Her repertoire spans from Renaissance to contemporary music and
as a singer with a wide voice range she has premiered several complicated
experimental pieces of Estonian composers. Kai Kallastu was a scholarship
recipient of the Association of Estonian Professional Musicians in 2009,
2010 and 2012. (www.kallastu.ee)
Soprano Ulla Paakkunainen
studied singing at the Sibelius Academy. Her teachers have been Essi
Heinonen, Taimi Airola, Liisa Linko-Malmio, Jaakko Ryhänen and Elizabeth Norberg-Schulz.
Her operatic roles include Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Despina in Cosi fan
tutte by Mozart, Valencienne in Die Lustige Witwe by Lehár, etc. She has
performed early music, chamber music and solos with orchestras. (www.ullapaakkunainen.com)
Mezzo-soprano Annaliisa Pillak studied singing at
the Sibelius Academy and the Verdi Conservatory in Milan. Her teachers have
been Ludmilla Dombrovska-Keis, Annika Ollinkari, Sonja Turchetta, Stelia
Dozi and Renate Behle. She has performed as an opera singer (Sextus in
Mozart’s opera La clemenza di Tito, Cenerentola in Rossini’s opera La
Cenerentola, 2nd Diplomat in Tüür’s opera Wallenberg, Maddalena in Verdi’s
opera Rigoletto, etc.), chamber musician and soloist at orchestral
concerts. She was a scholarship recipient of the Association of Estonian
Professional Musicians in 2008 and 2010. Annaliisa was also awarded the
Richard Wagner Bayreuth Scholarship in 2010. (annaliisapillak.com)
Mezzo-soprano Solgerd
Isalv studied singing at the Academy
of Music and Drama at the University of Göteborg. Her teachers have
been Marianne Schell, Helena Döse, Håkan
Hagenård, Matti Hirvonen, Marianne Häggander, Anna Larsson, Neil Mackie,
Thomas Quasthoff and Birgitta Svendén. She has performed as an opera
singer (Dorabella in Mozart’s
opera Cosi fan tutte, Mecedes in Bizet’s opera
Carmen, Olga in Tchaikovsky’s
opera Eugene Onegin, etc), chamber musician and soloist at
orchestral concerts. She is also a member
or the early music ensemble EGG
(Berlin). (solgerd.com)
Mezzo-soprano Margarita Swarczewskaja
studied choral conducting at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and
singing at the Tartini Conservatory in Trieste. Her teachers have been
Malle Raid, Mati Palm and Rita Susovsky. She has performed as an opera
singer (mono-opera Signorini’s L’Attesa by Lorenzo, 4th noble page in
Tannhäuser by Wagner), chamber musician and soloist at orchestral concerts.
In addition to singing, she is working as a choral conductor in Italy.
Tenor Petri Vesa
studied singing in Jyväskylä and Weimer. He is currently furthering his
skills in the International Opera Training Programme of the Sibelius
Academy in Finland. His teachers have been Turkka Manninen, Lani Poulson,
Seppo Ruohonen and Anssi Hirvonen. In addition to operatic roles (for
instance, his roles include Tamino in Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflöte and
Frederic Sullivan’s opera The Pirates of Penzanze), he is an active chamber
musician and soloist at orchestral concerts.
Bass Kristjan Mõisnik
studied singing at the Sibelius Academy and at the Hochschule für Musik und
Tanz in Cologne. His teachers have been Anssi Hirvonen, Erkki Rajamäki and
Hans Sotin. In 2004-2007, he was a soloist of the Bremen Opera and
performed the roles of Il Commendatore and Leporello in Don Giovanni and
Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte by Mozart, King Marke in Tristan und Isolde by
Wagner, etc. He is also a sought-after chamber musician and recitalist.
Stage director Sven
Kivisildnik, with the pen name (:)kivisildnik, is one of the most
controversial writers of contemporary Estonia. His oeuvre often addresses
his conflict with the external world as well as within himself. One of the
most radical examples of his early works was the poem „Eesti Nõukogude
Kirjanike Liit - 1981. aasta seisuga, olulist“ (The Writers’ Union of the
Estonian SSR – as at the year 1981, keywords)from 1990, which even brought
about a court case. As an opera director he is mostly a critic who draws
attention to the marginalisation of opera as a genre in today's society. He
is also the creative director of the publishing company “Jumalikud
ilmutused” (Divine Revelations).
Artist Margus Tiitsmaa
(Sorge) graduated from the Tallinn Pedagogical University in drawing
and art pedagogy and from the Estonian Academy of Arts in interdisciplinary
arts. Since 1983 his works have been exhibited in numerous solo and group
exhibitions, and as a performance artist he has participated in over two
hundred events in Estonia and abroad. In addition to his activity as an
artist, he has taught painting and performance arts at the Pärnu Sütevaka
Private High School of Humanities, performance, painting and welding at
Academia Non Grata, and has been a docent of the Department of Performance
Arts at Academia Grata, the Estonian Academy of Arts College in Pärnu.
Harpsichord player and organist
Marju Riisikamp studied the piano at the Tallinn State Conservatory
and furthered her organ and harpsichord skills in Lithuania, Russia, the
Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Her teachers have been Virve
Lippus, Hugo Lepnurm, Taivo Niitvägi, Christopher Stembridge, Luigi
Ferdinando Tagliavini, Pieter van Dijk, Marieke Spaans and Edoardo
Bellotti. She has collaborated with several Estonian early music ensembles
and has performed the continuo part of Händel’s Alcina at the Latvian
National Opera. She has given numerous performances as a soloist and
ensemble member in Finland, Sweden, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany and
Italy. She has released two CDs: Espressione and Renaissance Organ Music
from England and Italy. She is a scholarship recipient of the Estonian
Association of Professional Musicians.
The concert master of the
Pärnu Opera Orchestra, violinist Valeria Rjumina, studied at the
Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre where her teachers were Alexandr
Ficher, Mari Tampere-Bezrodny, Sigrid Kuulmann and Ruta Lipinaitite. She
has played the violin in the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, the
Tallinn Sinfonietta and the Narva City Orchestra. In season 2011/2012 she
was the concert master of the symphony orchestra of the Estonian Academy of
Music and Theatre. She has been a member of the Pärnu Opera Orchestra since
2011.
Conductor and composer Andrus
Kallastu has collaborated with numerous excellent musicians in Estonia,
Finland, Germany, Switzerland, France and elsewhere in Europe. He is also
known as the artistic director of several festivals and musical collectives
in Estonia and Finland. In terms of his musical experience, style and
knowledge, Andrus Kallastu boasts remarkable versatility: as a musician he
has performed works from Gregorian chant to ultra-modern interdisciplinary
compositions and is an esteemed performer of Baroque and classical music.
His favourite composers include Machaut, Bach, Mozart, Richard Strauss,
Stravinsky, Boulez, Xenakis and Ferneyhough. As a conductor and composer,
Kallastu is fascinated with the human voice and music theatre; as a pianist
he is a sought-after ensemble partner to singers and instrumentalists. (www.kallastu.ee)
Mixed choir “Endla” is one of the oldest mixed choirs in Estonia.
Established in Pärnu in 1878, the choir has guaranteed the continuity of
the historic culture promotion society “Endla” through difficult times. The
current 34 singers of the choir are residents of Pärnu with entirely different
daily occupations. The conductor of the choir is Karin Veissmann. The
traditions of the choir include performances at the various events of Pärnu
City, Christmas and summer concerts, entertainment and sports outings to
various locations in Estonia, joint projects with other choirs in Pärnu,
and participating in the choir festivals of Pärnu and various song
festivals. (www.endlakoor.ee)
Karin Veissmann has graduated from the choral conducting class of
Silvia Mellik at the Georg Ots Tallinn Music School, and from the choral
conducting class of Ants Üleoja at the Tallinn State Conservatory. Besides
conducting the mixed choir “Endla”, she is also the conductor of the
children's choir "Pöial-Liisi" (Thumbelina) of the House of Arts
in Pärnu; she is also the headmaster, and solfeggio and harmony teacher of
the Pärnu Music School. Since 1989, she is singing in the ensemble
“Linnamuusikud”. In 2008, she received the Annual Music Award of Pärnu City
and in 2007 she received an honorary title from the Pärnu County for her
inspiring accomplishments. Since 2005, she has been the chief conductor of
the song festivals of Pärnu County.
The very first performance of
the Pärnu Opera Orchestra took place in 1993, when a concert
performance of the opera Le nozze di Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was
given under the baton of conductor Rolf Gupta in the hall of the Pärnu Old
Town Primary School. The production of the same opera at the Endla Theatre
(stage director Elmo Nüganen) in 1994 may be regarded as the first
performance of the Pärnu City Orchestra. The concert masters of the current
orchestra are violinists Leena Laas and Valeria Rjumina. The conductor of
the Pärnu Opera Orchestra is Andrus Kallastu.
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