The Finnish pianist Joonas Ahonen’s musical interests extend from music of the late 18th century performed on authentic instruments to world premieres of contemporary works. As a member of Klangforum Wien he worked for twelve years with leading composers such as Tristan Murail and Beat Furrer. As a soloist, he has performed with, among others, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Ensemble Ictus.
Recent appearances have included George Crumb’s Makrokosmos at the 2024 Salzburg Festival and the world premiere of Bernhard Gander’s Scorching Scherzo with the SWR Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart in 2023. He gave the world premiere of Rebecca Saunders’s to an utterance at the Berlin Philharmonie, performed Unsuk Chin’s Piano Concerto with the Basel Sinfonietta, Philipp Maintz’s Piano Concerto with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop and Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and made his debut with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Pablo Heras-Casado.
He has also performed works by Morton Feldman in a pitch-dark Finnish cowshed, smashed a violin during a performance of Nam June Paik’s One for Violin Solo and appeared in a European tour of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Achterland with the dance company Rosas.
With his duo partner, the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, he has appeared as a guest artist at La Scala, Milan, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Toppan Hall in Tokyo and the Gstaad Menuhin Festival. Their joint album Le monde selon George Antheil was released in 2022 by Alpha Classics.
His critically acclaimed recordings for the label BIS Records include Ligeti’s Piano Concerto with the BIT20 Ensemble under Baldur Brönnimann, along with two CDs of Charles Ives’s piano sonatas, Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations op. 120 and Schubert’s Variation on a Waltz by Diabelli D. 718 performed on a fortepiano, Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire, and, in 2023, a recording of world premieres with the Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto.
Since 2023 Joonas Ahonen has been professor of piano at the University of Music and Dance in Cologne.
