Riina Piirilä

Riina Piirilä (b. 1995) studied the viola at the Sibelius Academy and at the Norwegian Academy of Music, with Helge Valtonen, Atte Kilpeläinen, Lilli Maijala and Lars Anders Tomter. She also furthered her studies in masterclasses with Thomas Riebl, Tabea Zimmermann, Hartmut Rohde and others and at the European Chamber Music Academy (ECMA). She is at present completing her studies at the Frankfurt University of Music, in the class of Lars Anders Tomter, and with Pirkko Simojoki at the Sibelius Academy.

A versatile chamber musician, Piirilä has appeared in Scandinavia and even India and is a regular performer at Finland’s leading chamber music festivals, such as Kuhmo Chamber Music, the Turku and Kauniainen Festival. She was one of the Artistic Directors of the Helsinki Chamber Summer Festival, with Kasmir Uusitupa, Tami Pohjola, Senja Rummukainen and Johannes Piirto from 2017 to 2021. During the period 2011–2018 she was a member of the Borea Quartet that was the quartet-in-residence at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival.

As a finalist in the 2017 Tampere Viola Competition, Pirilä was the soloist with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra. She is a regular extra with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Tapiola Sinfonietta and other orchestras, sometimes as section leader. For her studies, she has received grants from the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Wihuri Foundation.