Jyrki Myllärinen
Jyrki Myllärinen was born near Naples, Italy in 1961. He spent his childhood in Lappeenranta, Finland and started his music hobby by playing the violin in the music class of the elementary school. Soon he took on the guitar along with the violin, and guitar studies took him back to Naples in Conservatorio S. Pietro a Majella, where he studied years 1979-1984 with Francesco De Sanctis.
In 1984 he continued his studies in Sibelius Academy with Seppo Siirala, finalizing with an A examination with honors in 1989. After his debut concert, Myllärinen moved to Basel to continue his studies in Italian Oscar Ghiglia’s masterclass in the Basel Music Academy. The year 1994 brought the prestigious soloist diploma from the Basel Music Academy, and the first place in the international Gargnano guitar competition. This and ranking high in other competitions in the mid-90s boosted Myllärinen’s solo career, and his first solo recordings cemented him in the front row of Finnish guitarists. His Bach recording of 1998 was nominated for “Janne” prize for new classical recordings, and all his four solo recordings have been critically acclaimed both in Finland and abroad.
Since then Jyrki Myllärinen has performed in concerts all around Europe, and the United States, as well as performed on radio and TV in multiple countries. He has made several original recordings of new music and other recordings for the Finnish Broadcasting Company. He has recorded both traditional and new guitar repertoire and premiered more than twenty new Finnish compositions. In the 2000s his repertoire has increasingly focused on contemporary music, but along his long career he has worked on other genres as well, e.g. gypsy music in Zingara ensemble, Russian romance in Romantika, and Neapolitan folk music in Collettivo Teatro Folk di Siano.
Recently his artistic work has been diversified by composing his own music and preparing an artistic doctoral degree in the DocMus Doctoral School of the Sibelius Academy. In addition to traditional concerts, Myllärinen regularly performs in assisted living homes for the elderly through Virtaa Musiikista association that he founded in 2011. Myllärinen is the artistic director of “Ja kitara soi” guitar music festival in his old hometown Lappeenranta. He has taught multiple masterclasses, and in Sibelius Academy, Turku University of Applied Sciences and the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.