TCM: Workshop Lecture – The Breathing Rhythm

Professor, D.Sc. (Tech.)
Tampere University

Esa Räsänen is Professor of Physics and Head of the Physics Unit at Tampere University, and a Visiting Researcher at Harvard University. His research focuses on computational physics, particularly quantum mechanics and the interdisciplinary study of complex time series, including applications in cardiology. He has published approximately 150 scientific articles and holds several patents, and the results of his research group have been commercialized, for example in heart rate monitoring devices.

Räsänen has also studied the structure of rhythmic variation in music and has developed new computational methods for rhythm analysis. In addition to his academic work, he is a drummer in the band The Prof Experience.

Saxophonist Jukka Perko rose to prominence in jazz circles as a teenager after his breakthrough performance at the Pori Jazz Festival in the summer of 1986. The following year, he was invited to join the orchestra of the legendary trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie on his 70th anniversary tour. Having purchased his first saxophone at the age of 14 with money earned from summer work at a poultry farm, the boy from the countryside had already performed in more than 30 countries by the age of 24.

Among Perko’s most notable recordings are Music of Olavi Virta by the Jukka Perko & Hurmio ensemble, released on the Blue Note label; Kaanaanmaa, recorded with the Virtuosi di Kuhmo Chamber Orchestra; and Dizzy, released on the We Jazz label to mark the 100th anniversary of Dizzy Gillespie’s birth.

Perko is also widely known for his many successful ensembles and for his extensive work as a guest soloist with big bands and symphony orchestras.

Alongside his performing career, he serves as Artistic Director of the Viapori Jazz Festival and teaches at the Sibelius Academy. In autumn 2023, Jukka Perko began a three-year term as Artistic Partner of the Kymi Sinfonietta.

For Perko, music is a way of being. He learned to play much as he learned to speak—by listening and imitating. Approaching music through stillness and reflection, he describes his attitude toward playing and composing as a balancing act between the pursuit of perfection and the acceptance of incompleteness. Perhaps this is why his music resonates with what some call grace.

Driven by his outstanding technique and by his ability to combine distinctly Finnish qualities with the jazz tradition, Jukka Perko has grown into one of the most important saxophonists of his generation.

Heini Kärkkäinen studied piano at the prestigious Sibelius Academy under Professor Liisa Pohjola from 1984 to 1991 (Master of Music) and furthered her studies with teachers including Ralf Gothóni and Jacques Rouvier (Paris). She won the Ilmari Hannikainen Piano Competition in 1984 and placed second in the Maj Lind Piano Competition in 1986.

Kärkkäinen has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Keski-Pohjanmaa Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, and Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana. She also appears extensively in Europe and the United States as a chamber musician.

She collaborates closely with chamber musicians including Robert Cohen, Priya Mitchell, Réka Szilvay, and Yuval Gotlibovich.

Heini Kärkkäinen has participated in numerous international festivals, such as Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, Oxford Music Festival, Holstebro International Music Festival, Pärnu Music Festival, Staunton Music Festival, Charleston Manor Festival, and Caceres Music Festival.

She has premiered a large number of contemporary Finnish works, including compositions by Jouni Kaipainen, Mikko Heiniö, Magnus Lindberg, Aulis Sallinen, Olli Koskelin, Marzi Nyman, and Outi Tarkiainen.

Kärkkäinen has recorded several award-winning albums. A duo recording with Jan-Erik Gustafsson (Ondine) received Yleisradio’s “Record of the Year” award in 1994. A recording of Camille Saint-Saëns’ music (BIS Classics) was selected as BBC Music Magazine’s Album of the Month in March 2007 and recommended by Gramophone magazine. Other recordings include a Sibelius album with Pekka Kuusisto (Ondine) and Bartók’s Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion (RSO/Jumppanen/Oramo/Warner Classics).

Alongside her solo career, Heini Kärkkäinen has taught piano at Tampere University of Applied Sciences since 2010, serving as a lecturer from 2024. Her teaching also includes chamber music and pedagogy.

In January 2017, Kärkkäinen founded an international chamber music festival in Tampere combining music and wellbeing. The Tampere Chamber Music Festival brings together leading international musicians and lecturers in an event that explores holistic human wellbeing and the health benefits of music. The festival has been warmly received in Tampere.

Robert Cohen made his concerto debut at the age of twelve at the Royal Festival Hall London and throughout the following forty-five years of his distinguished international career, has been hailed as one of the foremost cellists of our time. “It is easy to hear what the fuss is about, he plays like a God” (New York Stereo Review).  
  

Invited to perform concertos world-wide by conductors Claudio Abbado, Antal Dorati, Sir Mark Elder, Mariss Jansons, Sir Charles Mackerras, Kurt Masur, Riccardo Muti, Sir Roger Norrington, Tadaaki Otaka, Sir Simon Rattle, Michael Tilson-Thomas, Osmo Vänskä, Robert Cohen has also collaborated in chamber music with many renowned soloists and ensembles such as Yehudi Menuhin, the Amadeus String Quartet (including their CD of Schubert Quintet on Deutsche Grammophon), Leonidas Kavakos, Krystian Zimerman and his long-term duo partner pianist Heini Kärkkäinen. 

Photo: Martina Simkovicova 

Robert Cohen made his recording debut at age 19 with the Elgar Cello Concerto and London Philharmonic (EMI), which earned a silver disc for sales of more than 1/4 million, and has recorded extensively for BIS, BeArTon, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Naxos, Sony and under long term contract to Decca. 

  
Cohen is an inspirational teacher, giving masterclasses at Conservatoires throughout the world. He is William Pleeth Professor of Cello at the Royal Academy of Music, London and gives Performance and Preparation Lectures at the Royal Academy of Music, the University of Cambridge and music festivals in Canada, China, Finland, Sweden, Slovakia and the USA. Cohen’s experience and fascination with helping musicians led him to form Cello Clinic – diagnosing and resolving physical and physiological performing issues. 

Kuva: Martina Simkovicova