Sonja Fraki

Pianist Sonja Fräki specializes in the music of composer Kalevi Aho. She has also performed concertos with a variety of orchestras in Finland and abroad. Fräki was born on June 11, 1977, in Helsinki. She enrolled at age 13 at the Helsinki Conservatory, studying there from 1990 to 1997. Fräki went on to the Sibelius Academy, earning a master's degree there in 2003 after studies with Teppo Koivistolähde. She also studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe, Germany, from 2001 to 2004, working with Carmen Piazzini, and then returned to the Sibelius Academy, earning a doctoral degree there with a dissertation on Aho's music. Fräki rounded out her education with a variety of master classes, including those with Emanuel Krasovsky, Peter Eicher, and Menahem Pressler. Successful appearances in competitions, including a fourth prize at the Schubert Competition in Dortmund, Germany, in 2003, and a third prize at the Liszt Competition in Wroclaw, Poland, in 2008, helped launch a successful concert career that has included performances with orchestras around Finland -- the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, and Tapiola Sinfonietta -- as well as recitals in Sweden, around continental Europe, and in Russia. Fräki has played chamber music in a piano duo with Niklas Pokki, with violinists Annemarie Åström, and with the Zagros Ensemble. Fräki has often played Aho's music in recital, but her focus on his works is especially evident in her recording career. After a 2013 debut on the Pilfink label with an album of music by Schubert and Liszt, she was signed to the BIS label and released Kalevi Aho: Solo Works for Piano in 2015. As of 2020, she had released two more Aho albums on BIS; on Kalevi Aho: Chamber Music (2020), she teamed with violinists Jaakko Kuusisto and Pekka Kuusisto, and cellist Samuli Peltonen. Fräki is on the faculty at Finland's Juvenalia College of Music (teaching accompaniment), at the Sibelius Academy (teaching chamber piano), and as at the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences.
© James Manheim /TiVo