Clarinet Concertos Nos 1, 3 & 4 (with Mozart - Clarinet Concerto)

"Even better than Benny Goodman, Kari Kriikku swings the classics!"
- Laurence Vittes, Audiophile Audition Web Magazine

Kari Kriikku has established an interesting and versatile career both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. The standard classical repertoire for clarinet being relatively small, the Avanti! and Toimii ensembles have provided him with a natural forum for the interpretation of contemporary music and performances that break with the conventional concert format.

Kriikku has worked in close partnership with composers and premiered a number of works. Highly-acclaimed concertos have been written specially for him by, among others, Magnus Lindberg, Kimmo Hakola, Jukka Tiensuu and Jouni Kaipainen. Kriikku has so far given over 40 performances of the concerto Puro by Tiensuu. He has, in the course of his solo engagements, made the acquaintance of the London Sinfonietta and the Ensemble Intercontemporain, as of the BBC SO, the Stockholm and Oslo Philharmonics, the CBSO, the Frankfurt RSO, and the Los Angeles and Toronto Symphonies, and he has worked with such conductors as Alan Gilbert, Sakari Oramo, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Semyon Bychkov, Susanna Mälkki and Osmo Vänskä.

Kari Kriikku has not, however, received critical acclaim for his concert and disc performances of contemporary music only: his recording of the complete Weber concertos with Sakari Oramo and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Ondine ODE 895-2, 1997) is considered one of the best. In spring 2000 this partnership continued with a recording of the Crusell clarinet concertos that elicited glowing international reviews (Ondine ODE 965-2). Kriikku's disc of works for clarinet by Kimmo Hakola (Ondine ODE 960-2) was awarded the Finnish Janne Prize.

In chamber music Kari Kriikku has worked in partnership with the Arditti, New Helsinki, Avanti!, Borodin and Jean Sibelius Quartets and such musicians as Natalia Gutman, Alexei Lubimov and Yuri Bashmet. Artistic Director of the Crusell Week in Uusikaupunki (Finland) between 1994 and 1999, Kari Kriikku has held the corresponding post with the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra since the end of 1998.