Mieko Kanno

Violinist Mieko Kanno first came to international attention in the 1980s when she won prizes in international competitions such as the Carl Flesch, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium and Hannover. Later she developed an interest in performing contemporary music and received the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis at the Darmstadt New Music Institute in 1994. Since then she has been a prime exponent of new music for violin throughout Europe and given many first performances as soloist as well as in ensembles. She has a parallel career as musician and academic, and is dedicated in both capacities to the development of a new practice in music. She is especially known for her pioneering work on subjects such as complex notation and microtonality, and her research ranges from performing on the Violectra electric violin with electronics and commissioning works for it, to a long-term project on John Cage’s Freeman Etudes. She also plays Baroque violin and has worked extensively with Ensemble Florilegium in the late 1990s. Engaging with a wide range of repertoire remains an important principle for her. She has worked at Durham University, UK (2001-2012) and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (2013-2016); she came to Finland in 2016 to be Professor in Artistic Doctoral Studies at the Sibelius Academy, the University of the Arts Helsinki, and was also for 2018-21 Director of the Centre for Artistic Research (CfAR) at the same University. She plays a Giovanni Grancino violin dating from 1685.