Johannes Rostamo

Johannes Rostamo has been the principal cellist of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra since 2008. He is a versatile musician, also active in Baroque music and experimental contemporary music, and an important educator as well. Rostamo was born on December 7, 1980, in Vantaa, Finland. His full name is Simo Ilkka Johannes Rostamo. From 1989 to 2000, he studied at Finland's Espoo Music College, where his principal teachers were Heikki Pekkarinen and Heikki Rautasalo. Rostamo went on for further studies in Stockholm and Oslo with Torleif Thedéen, Truls Mørk, and Frans Helmerson. He earned a soloist diploma at the Edsberg Chamber Music Institute in Sweden in the spring of 2008. That year, he won a place as the principal cellist of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, and as of the mid-2020s, he continued to hold that position. Rostamo's recording debut came in 2015 on the album Sanctified by the heavy metal band The Grim. He is a member of the Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble, a contemporary chamber group, and his classical debut, A Moveable Feast, was recorded with that group and released in 2016. Rostamo also studied Baroque cello with Emmanuel Balssa, Bruno Cocset, and Gaetano Nasillo, and he is the artistic leader of the ensemble Orfeus Barock Stockholm. He also devises unusual solo projects such as CelloCelloCello, which presents a timeline of the cello's history from the Baroque to the present day. He has performed as guest principal cellist with leading ensembles, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. In 2019, Rostamo and Orfeus Barock released a recording of music by C.P.E. Bach and J.S. Bach on the Alba label. He returned on the BIS label in 2022, appearing on the album Doppio Espressivo: Double Concertos for Bass Instruments, and the following year, he appeared on the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic's recording of Jacob Mühlrad's REMS ("Rapid Eye Movement Sleep").
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