Anna-Maaria Oramo
Anna-Maaria Oramo is a versatile musician: harpsichordist and organist, but also pianist and singer with a repertoire ranging from medieval right up to contemporary music. She has a busy schedule as soloist, ensemble member and music director and masterminds a wealth of programmes including medieval and Renaissance music. Her most regular engagements are as the harpsichordist in the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and the Finnish Baroque Orchestra, and she also works with Baroque orchestras outside Finland.
Anna-Maaria has been equally active in her solo career. Her debut disc, of harpsichord sonatas by Antonio Soleri, and the ensemble disc Canta la Serenissima won international acclaim. Soon to be released is a disc made with the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra of the concertos for three and four harpsichords by J.S. Bach. Right now, she is concentrating mainly on the medieval harpsichord, the clavisimbalum, and she is so far the only Finnish harpsichordist to perform medieval music on an instrument built according to its 15th-century models.
From the age of five, Anna-Maaria studied the piano right up to 1998. She then focused first on church music, the organ and singing, and later the harpsichord. Her teachers included Elina Mustonen and Miklós Spányi at the Sibelius Academy and Olivier Baumont at the Paris Conservatoire, and she also took lessons privately from Pierre Hantaï. She received an artistic Doctorate from the Sibelius Academy in 2017, on the topic of the imitation of singing in French harpsichord music 1650–1730. She teaches early music in masterclasses, such as at the Sastamala Gregoriana festival since 2002 and is this year hoping to visit the Barion Festival in Italy, to perform and to teach a masterclass.