Ulla Suokko Concert Flutist
“Her flute recital was not a recital in the traditional sense: it was a theatrical presentation, a scientific study, an essay of meditation, a frolic, a history lesson, an exploration of the unexplored, and a reinventing of not just what the flute family can do, but how the heart, mind, body and soul can communicate through its seductive overtones…”
-New York Concert Review
Finnish concert flutist Ulla Suokko enjoys a versatile international career. As a soloist and chamber musician, she has been featured in some of New York City’s most prestigious concert venues, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall and Miller Theater, appearing at the Lincoln Center Festival, American Composers’ Orchestra concerts, Museum of Modern Art Summergarden series among others. Her international tours include Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Ulan Bator and Gobi desert in Mongolia; Baku, Azerbaijan; Tbilisi, the Georgian Republic; and Tokyo, Japan. She can be heard regularly throughout the New York Metropolitan area, and New York City’s classical radio station WNYC has broadcast her recordings and live performances. In addition to NYC and upstate New York, her recent engagements have brought her to Peru, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Finland, Sweden, Canada, Germany, France, Arizona, Colorado, California, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Texas, Oregon, Washington state, Minnesota and Georgia.
On the Edge of Creation - Music of Our Time
Ms. Suokko’s extensive experience with some of New York’s best contemporary music ensembles, such as Continuum, Ensemble Sospeso and Columbia University’s Composers’ Concerts has brought her countless enriching opportunities to collaborate with some of the most creative composers of our times from all over the world. In addition to the regular concert flute, she is at home on the bass flute, the alto flute and the piccolo, as well as using herself as an instrument through breath, sound and movement. She has premiered scores of works, many inspired by her and dedicated to her. She made her Carnegie Hall debut as a winner of Artists International annual competition with flamenco guitarist Carlos Revollar in an all original program by the duo based on Finnish folk songs and flamenco traditions.
Ms. Suokko has been a featured artist at many summer festivals in her native Finland, including repeated appearances the Iitti Music Festival, Kymijoen Lohisoitto and Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival. In addition to solo and chamber music performances in the traditional concert hall, she often brings music into more intimate settings, creating special custom-designed programs for a variety of audiences, including New York public and private schools. Always searching for new ways of communicating and reaching for the hearts of people, she enjoys exploring and expanding the possibilities of expression.
Doctor of Musical Arts
Ms. Suokko earned the Master of Music degree from Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland and a Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. While still living in Finland, she was flutist in the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and spent many summers studying and performing in Italy. She has lectured and taught master classes in the U.S., Europe and Central Asia. She holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Julius Baker. Her doctoral dissertation was on music and rhetoric: the art of oration, communication, persuasion and presentation.
Healing Power of Music
An advocate of the healing power of music, Dr. Suokko was one of the musicians who brought music to the relief workers and to the families of the victims of the WTC tragedy. She played over 40 concerts in St. Paul’s Chapel at ground zero. She also brings concerts to hospitals, nursing homes, children’s advocacy centers and into the homes of hospice-care patients. Complementing her musical work, she gives workshops on peak performance, stress release, relaxation techniques, listening, communicating, and improvisation, as well as on the healing and transformational power of music. Her improvised, soothing solo flute CD, Bridge of Light, is an invocation for peace, balance, harmony and love.
There Is Always More
Always a student, Dr. Suokko keeps expanding her knowledge and experience of the healing arts, exploring with equal thirst the ancient traditions of the world and the contemporary research of vibrational and energy medicine. Her interests range from shamanism to quantum physics. She divides her time between her two homes in NYC and the Peruvian Andes.
