THE KOKKOLA QUARTET consists of players (Reetta Kataja, Reijo Tunkkari, Hanna Pakkala, Lauri Pulakka) from the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. They are all musicians with long experience who share a mutual vision and passion for chamber music. The Quartet has given recitals in its home region, Ostrobothnia, and in autumn 2017 performed in the Organo Hall of the Helsinki Music Centre. Its first CD, released in spring 2018 on the Alba label, featured three works by Pehr Henrik Nordgren: his third string quartet, Equivocations (with Eija Kankaanranta, kantele) and his string quintet (with Janne Virkkala, cello). On CD ”The Anders Chydenius Collection” (Alba, 2020) Kokkola quartet plays chamber music from the classical era.
Violinist Reetta Kataja studied at Sibelius Academy and at Hochschule für Music Detmold. Her important teachers and mentors have been Anatoli Melnikov, Janne Malmivaara, Tero Latvala and Elina Vähälä. Reetta worked as 1st Concertmaster in Lapland Chamber Orchestra during the years 2013-2020. At present she is Alternating Concertmaster in Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra.
Reijo Tunkkari has been playing in the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra since 1976, as its first leader since 1994. He studied with Jennifer Nuttall-Wolf and Endre Wolf at the Edsberg Institute of Music in Stockholm and privately with Igor Bezrodny, Eli Goren and others. He was also a member of the earlier Kokkola Quartet from 1989.
Hanna Pakkala studied the viola at the Sibelius Academy, in Berlin and Weimar, with Helge Valtonen, Anna-Kreetta Gribajcevic, Pauline Sachse and Erich Krüger. Winner of the second prize in the Tampere National Viola Competition in 2012, she is principal violist in the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra and also teacher of viola at Sibelius Academy.
Lauri Pulakka, a member of the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra ever since it was formed, is its first principal cellist and programme coordinator. His long schooling with the orchestra has been matched by in-depth studies leading to a Doctorate at the Sibelius Academy.
